The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the...

Questo lavoro analizza le diverse fasi della recente crisi economico-finanziaria, ponendo l'accento sull'entita' del credit crunch in Italia e nel resto d'Europa, al fine di cogliere le similitudini ma, soprattutto, le differenze tra i paesi centrali e quelli periferici ell'area dell'euro, tra i...

This paper presents two views of the European sovereign debt crisis. The first is that the South in the euro zone has been fiscally irresponsible, and has failed to implement supply-side policies such as liberalizing labor markets and the market for services. The second view holds that the...

Financial products are unstandardized and subject to a great deal of uncertainty. They tend to concentrate geographically because of the reduction in information costs resulting from close contacts. Concentration leads to economies of scale and encourages external economies. Great financial...

This paper introduces a new dataset on the stock and structure of domestic debt in 36 Low-Income Countries over the period 1971-2011. We characterize the recent trends regarding LICs domestic public debt and explore the relevance of different arguments put forward on the benefits and costs of...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the links between public debt and economic growth in advanced economies. We find that theoretical models yield ambiguous results. Whether high levels of public debt have a negative effect on long-run growth is thus an empirical question. While many...

A major policy issue is whether troubles in the banking system re ected in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 have spurred a credit crunch and, if so, how and why its severity has been different across markets and firms. In this paper, we tackle this issue by looking at the...

This paper uses an instrumental variable approach to study whether public debt has a causal effect on economic growth in a sample of OECD countries. The results are consistent with the existing literature that has found a negative correlation between debt and growth. However, the link between...

In this paper we look at the effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending programs on banking crises in a large sample of developing countries, over the period 1965-2010. The endogeneity of the Fund intervention is addressed by adopting an instrumental variable (IV) strategy, in which the...

Microsavings contribute to smooth consumption, face emergencies and increase welfare of poor households and to empower and foster investment opportunities for poor women. We take advantage of an original survey submitted to 98 Bangladeshi women member of Hitaishi, a small Dhaka-based...