The increased importance of rating agencies for emerging-market finance has brought their work to the attention of a wider group of observers — and under criticism. This paper evaluates whether the importance of ratings for developing-country finance has changed since the Asian Crisis and...

The paper evaluates the economics of foreign investment regulation for pension funds, with a focus on developing countries, where fully-funded pension systems are being started de novo. The analysis produces three observations. First, the benefits of global portfolio diversification apply...

The recent currency crises in Latin America and Asia have hit countries with strong macroeconomic fundamentals but weak domestic financial systems. Private capital flows, attracted by disorderly financial liberalisation and exchange rate pegs, reversed abruptly when financial-sector weaknesses...

Concerns about corporate governance standards have often centred on emerging markets, notably after the 1997-98 Asian crisis. A series of corporate scandals have now raised investor concerns over the quality of earnings and opaque balance sheet structures in the US and other developed countries....

Large current account deficits are often assumed to play an important role in the propagation of financial crises in emerging markets in receipt of heavy private capital inflows. This paper reaches some major conclusions. First, the Lawson Doctrine — according to which current account deficits...

Over recent years, a number of emerging creditors have increased their aid and lending to Africa’s Low-Income Countries (LICs). This has fed worries that new official lenders may be undoing years of international efforts to rein in over-indebtedness in Africa, to reduce the continent’s...

Three novel macroeconomic policy challenges are discussed in this paper: the macroeconomic implications of China’s emergence; the implications of intensifying financial integration; and the interaction of Asia’s foreign exchange regime with monetary policy in the OECD area. First, China may...

The present level of ODA falls short of the amount needed to finance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The figure of additional $50 billion per year, roughly the present total of ODA spent by DAC donors, is often quoted (e.g. by the Zedillo Report); it results from the sum of the fight...

How and to what extent can a high degree of global financial integration help the fast-ageing OECD benefit from the delayed ageing process in the non-OECD area? The question is being raised with increasing urgency as it is slowly understood that even fully funded pension schemes will not escape...

Investment in most heavily indebted countries has been weak since 1982. The widely accepted debt overhang proposition interprets the investment drop as a moral hazard problem: a heavy debt burden raises the incentive to consume, because the marginal benefit of investment would go to the...