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...

By any standard, Bolivia's economic crisis in the 1980's has been extraordinary. Like its neighbors. Bolivia suffered from major external shocks, but the extent of economic collapse in the face of these shocks (including a hyperinflation during 1984-85) suggests that internal factors as well as...

The major theme of this paper is that the commercial banks have weathered the debt crisis, while many debtor countries remain in economic paralysis or worse. There is a growing consensus that much of the LDC debt will not be fully serviced in the future, and that consensus is reflected in at...

This paper presents a theoretical model to describe the effects of default risk on international lending to LDC sovereign borrowers. The threat of defaults in international lending is shown to give rise to many characteristics of the syndicated loan market: (1) quantity rationing of loans; (2)...

Much of Africa has not yet gone through a quot;demographic transitionquot; to reduced mortality and fertility rates. The fact that the continent's countries remain mired in a Malthusian crisis of high mortality, high fertility, and rapid population growth (with an accompanying state of chronic...

The central hypothesis of this paper is that high income inequality in Latin America contributes to intense political pressures for macroeconomic policies to raise the incomes of lower income groups, which in turn contributes to bad policy choices and weak economic performance. The paper looks...

We suggest that the geographical patterns of income differences across the world have deep underpinnings. We emphasize that economic development is a complex process driven by economic, political, social, and biophysical forces. Some economists have argued that the patterns reflect mainly the...

In this paper we examine the macroeconomic interdependence of Japan and the U.S. using a medium-scale simulation model of the world economy. Our goal is to determine how shifts in macroeconomic policies in the U.S. or Japan affectthe other country as well as the rest of the world. In particular...

Carbon taxation has been studied primarily in social planner or infinitely lived agent models, which trade off the welfare of future and current generations. Such frameworks obscure the potential for carbon taxation to produce a generational win-win. This paper develops a large-scale, dynamic...

The effect on commercial banks of exposure to large amounts of developing country debt has been a topic of increasing concern in recent years. Fear of default on the part of the debtor countries has led to fears for the solvency of the creditor banks since in many cases the total of outstanding...