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...

This paper shows that whether or not a sovereign can borrow to smooth consumption depends both on how consumption smoothing is achieved, whether by contingent debt issuance or by contingent debt servicing, and on the exact nature of the penalty for debt repudiation. If a sovereign that...

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...

Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain's borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance...

This paper studies the maturity and stream of payments of sovereign debt. Using Bloomberg bond data for eleven emerging economies, we document that countries react to crises by issuing debt with shortened maturity but back-load payment schedules. To account for this pattern, we develop a...

quot;Debt overhangquot; models have motivated the possibility of Pareto-improving quot;market-based debt-reduction schemesquot; under an assumption of creditor seizure in bad states. These models usually reach the conclusion that while pure debt forgiveness is in the interest of debtor nations,...

This paper develops a cross-country statistical model of debt rescheduling, and the secondary market valuation of LDC debt, which links these variables to key structural characteristics of developing countries, such as the trade regime, the degree of income inequality, and the share of...

Since August 1982 the international debt crisis has dominated economic policymaking in the developing countries, economic relations between the debtor and creditor countries, the attention of the multilateral institutions in their dealings with the debtor nations, and private sector decisions on...