Capital flows to the nonindustrial countries share three striking characteristics. First, the bulk, of these flows was in the form of debt, not equity; second, the loans were mostly to, or guaranteed by, debtor governments; and third, these debts were largely bank loans, not bonds. This paper...

This paper considers the problem of allocation of investment for a debtor country that faces a ceiling on the amount of foreign debt it can accumulate. It shows that it is optimal for the debtor country to create a more open economy by favoring investment in the export sector over investment in...

This paper constructs and analyzes an optimizing model of a highly-indebted small open economy. An important innovation in the model is the incorporation of sovereign risk through the specification of an upward-sloping foreign debt supply function. The model is used to examine the interaction...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

In this paper it is argued that the willingness of debtors to make external debt-service payments reflects, in part, their inability to credibly and permanently suspend debt service. The benefits of a credible debt-service suspension would include increased private investment. But this would, in...

This paper reviews the coordinated portfolio investment survey (CPIS) guide. The objectives of CPIS are to collect comprehensive information, with geographical detail on the country of residence of the issuer, on the stock of cross-border equities, long-term bonds and notes, and short-term debt...

This paper presents a coordinated portfolio investment survey guide provided to assist national compilers in the conduct of the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, conducted under the auspices of the IMF with reference to the year-end 1997. The guide covers a variety of conceptual issues...

We examine the effect of non-zero, long-run foreign asset positions on consumption dynamics in response to productivity shocks in a two-country, dynamic, general equilibrium model, with different discount factors across countries populated by overlapping generations of households. We then...

The coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey Guide is provided to assist balance of payments compilers in the conduct of an internationally coordinated survey of security holdings being conducted under the auspices of the IMF with reference to year-end 1997. The Guide has two main purposes: to...

In discussing the June 2014 paper, Executive Directors broadly supported staff's proposal to introduce more flexibility into the Fund's exceptional access framework to reduce unnecessary costs for the member, its creditors, and the overall system. Directors' views varied on staff's proposal to...