In this paper, the process for firms to decide whether or not to invest in corporate social responsibility is treated from a real option perspective. We extend the Husted (2005) framework with an important extra parameter that allows us to understand the timing of CSR investment and explain why...

This paper critically reviews three decades of official creditors’ debt relief practice in Sub-Saharan Africa from a novel angle, i.e. along debt relief’s similarities with other aid modalities. We show that debt relief is a true ‘chameleon’ which mimics different sorts of aid, from...

Currency crises, generally defined as rapid depreciations of a local currency or loss of foreign exchange reserves, are common incidents in modern monetary systems. Due to their repeated occurrence and severity, they have earned wide coverage by both theoretical and empirical literature....

This paper systematically reviews recent experience with debt-for-development swaps in Indonesia, the only debtor country where the number of such operations could warrant its qualification as a genuine government debt relief and development finance policy. First, we show that the 11 swaps...

This paper starts from the concept of ‘original sin’ to demonstrate that the development of local currency bond markets remains a priority for Sub-Saharan African countries, both as a prevention mechanism against external shocks and to exploit growth-boosting investment opportunities. We...

The question whether global financial integration is beneficial for everyone remains highly disputed. It is often assumed that financial globalization involves threshold effects, where integration is worthwhile only when certain preconditions are met. However, it has also been noted that...

This paper assesses the relative participation of Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala and Nicaragua in fragmented world production. Based on trade statistics from 2000 to 2004, it analyses whether the trade flows of these economies have evolved towards production sharing schemes, and how great this...

Through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, substantial amounts of debt relief have been granted to a set of low-income countries as an alternative instrument of aid delivery. The theoretical (and moral) arguments in favour of debt relief are well established. However, the...

In the light of worldwide commitments to meet global basic learning needs made at the 1990 United Nations Conference on Education for All (EFA) in Jomtien, the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar and the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit in New York, UNESCO has established a Working Group on...

As one of Kyoto’s three flexibility mechanisms for reducing the cost of compliance, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows the issuance of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits from offset projects in non-Annex I countries. Whilst much attention has focused on the widespread use of...