This paper deals with Latin America's experience with capital flows during the last decade and a half. It concentrates on a number of issues of increasing interest among academics and international observers, including the effect of capital inflows on domestic savings, the way in which capital...

This paper deals with Latin America's experience with capital flows during the last decade and a half. It concentrates on a number of issues of increasing interest among academics and international observers, including the effect of capital inflows on domestic savings, the way in which capital...

We argue that the disincentive effect of a debt overhang is generally small and consequently that debt reduction does not lead to important efficiency gains on this account. Instead, we develop a framework that highlights the inefficiency created by the liquidity constraint faced by...

This paper develops a cross-country statistical model of debt rescheduling, and the secondary market valuation of LDC debt, which links these variables to key structural characteristics of developing countries, such as the trade regime, the degree of income inequality, and the share of...

There has been a very rapid rise since the early 1990s in foreign reserves held by developing countries. These reserves have climbed to almost 30 percent of developing countries' GDP and 8 months of imports. Assuming reasonable spreads between the yield on reserve assets and the cost of foreign...

This paper investigates to what extent the international financial community has taken into account the risk characteristics of borrowing less developed countries when granting loans. Specifically, this study analyzes the determinants of the spread between the interest rate charged to a...

Why should multilateral lending exist in a world where private capital markets are well developed and governments have their own bilateral aid programs? If lending by the World Bank, IMF, and regional development banks has an independent rationale, it must rest on advantages generated by the...