More than 20 developing countries do not publish any data on their sovereign debt. In those that do disclose data, public debt statistics usually do not comply with international standards in terms of coverage and definitions. Some information can be deduced through indirect disclosure of debt...

Public debt in developing economies rose at a fast clip during 2020-21, at least partly due to the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman opined in early 2021 that "fighting covid is like fighting a war." This paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic shares many traits...

Previous research has documented weak, and sometimes conflicting, effects of legal quality on measures of firm debt. Using WorldScope data for 1,689 firms, as well as more detailed proprietary data for 315 firms across nine East Asian countries, the authors find that access to foreign financing...

This paper acknowledges the fact that some countries have to borrow in foreign currencies due to the various constraints they face. Starting from this point, the author reviews approaches for trying to determine the currency structure for sovereign debt, and discusses some issues inherent in...

Countries with high debt exposure are vulnerable to economic and financial shocks that could lead to sovereign defaults. This paper develops a methodology to identify countries that are at risk of debt default based on four elements of debt vulnerability. These elements capture the different...

This paper explores the linkage between income growth rates and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. So far the evidence is rather mixed, as no robust relationship between FDI and income growth has been established. The authors argue that countries need a sound business environment in the...

The authors revisit the debt overhang question. They first use nonparametric techniques to isolate a panel of countries on the downward sloping section of a debt Laffer Curve. In particular, overhang countries are ones where a threshold level of debt is reached in sample, beyond which (initial)...

Foreign investors are increasingly important participants in the local currency sovereign bond markets of developing countries. This note provides context on the overall growth of local currency sovereign debt markets in emerging markets and the growth of foreign investor participation in these...

Nigeria's oil boom has not brought an end to perennial stagnation in the non-oil economy. Is this the unavoidable consequence of the resource boom or have misguided policies contributed? This paper indicates that the extreme volatility of expenditure rather than Dutch Disease effects are behind...

This paper analyzes the recent growth of government domestic debt, including central bank debt, using a new data base on government domestic debt in developing countries with large, open financial systems. On average, government domestic debt grew much faster than GDP between 1994 and 2004 and...