The paper develops the view that the perspective on the HIPC initiative is distorted by the fact that – contrary to the Brady deal itself – it lacks all perspective on the ‘market value’ of the debt which is written down. The appropriate ‘market value’ is one that takes account of...

This paper addresses two puzzles of the growth literature: the failure of standard growth equations to account for slow growth in Latin America and Africa; and the surprising failure of trade to explain growth when trade liberalization appears to play a significant role. The paper shows that: i)...

This paper surveys the literature on external debt which has developed over the past decade. Initially this literature emphasized the intertemporal nature of the balance of payments, and reflected the view that balance of payments movements were an equilibrium phenomenon reflecting either...

Commodity prices are usually very slow to recover from adverse shocks. This is one of the reasons why it has proven so difficult either to smooth their effect or to stabilize them, and why it is sometimes argued that they should behave as if shocks were permanent. There is no reason however why...

We distinguish two attitudes towards debt. The attitude of prudent borrowers, which attempt to stabilize their debts to low levels, even in the event of a bad shock, and what we call, after Krugman, "Panglossian" borrowers, which only focus on the best of their growth prospects, and rationally...

The paper compiles a new data base, based on the earlier work by Kray and Nehu, to assess the determinants of sovereign debt crises over the last forty years. A simple statistical analysis of the cause of the crises is performed. It shows that neither the serial defaulter nor the "global crisis"...

Why do countries default? This seemingly simple question has yet to be adequately answered in the literature. Indeed, prevailing modelling strategies compel the to choose between two unappealing model features: depending on the cost of default selected by the modeler, either the debt ratios are...

This paper considers the impact of the Euro in Sub-Saharan Africa, looking at the transmission channels through which the Euro could affect the economies in the region and at the risks and opportunities for Sub-Saharan African countries. In particular, the paper looks into effects from the trade...