This empirical study finds that while debt reduction and policy reforms in debtor countries have been important determinants of renewed access to international capital markets, changes in international interest rates have been the dominant factor. We calculate the effects of changes in...

A new aggregation scheme used to measure the sources of fiscal financing of indebted countries suggests that there was a fundamental improvement in the seniority of domestic debt at the expense of foreign bank debt during the late 1980s. We argue that this was the revenue maximizing response of...

This paper compares U.S.-owned affiliates with other firms in developing countries with respect to the shifts in sales from home to export markets in response to the debt crisis of the early 1980s. The U.S. affiliates in heavily indebted countries increased their exports and the share of their...

We propose a continuous time model of nominal debt and investigate the role of inflation credibility in the potential for self-fulfilling debt crises. Inflation is costly, but reduces the real value of outstanding debt without the full punishment of default. With high inflation credibility,...

We compare different indexation schemes in terms of their ability to facilitate forgiveness and reduce the investment disincentives associated with the large LDC debt overhang. Indexing to an endogenous variable (e.g., a country's output) has a negative moral hazard effect on investment, This...

With the rapid increase in LDC indebtedness in the recent decade, the issues of creditworthiness and country risk have gained new importance. This paper offers a theoretical and historical analysis of international capital markets in the presence of default risk. The theoretical model suggests...

The main arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debt are the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model and calibrate these arguments to assess their quantitative importance. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion,...

This paper examines the tradeoffs facing creditors of a country whose debt is large enough that the country cannot attract voluntary new lending. If the country is unable to meet its debt service requirements out of current income, the creditors have two choices. They can finance the country,...

The G-8 Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) is the next step of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). There are two reasons why MDRI is unlikely to help poor countries. First, the amount of money at stake is trivial. The roughly $2 billion of annual debt payments to be...

Previous empirical studies of secondary market discounts for developing countries have ignored important creditor country factors. The empirical evidence in this paper indicates that, after controlling for repayment indicators of borrower countries, bank exposure and capital are important...