The 1992 Czechoslavakia mass privatization program involving about 1,500 eneterprises and implemented through a voucher scheme with competitive bidding was a bold step in changing the ownership and governance of a large part of the economy. It represents a clear test case of one approach, and...

Weaknesses in the corporate sector have increasingly been cited as important factors in financial crises in both emerging markets and industrial countries. Analysts have pointed to weak corporate performance and risky financing patterns as major causes of the East Asian financial crisis. And...

The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper the authors first estimate for 16 countries a measure...

A group of heavily indebted low-income countries (HIPCs), most in Sub-Saharan Africa, has continued to experience external debt problems. Because the HIPCs'economic characteristics and external imbalances are very different from those of middle-income countries, the analysis of debt problems and...

This paper shows that market-based financial instruments are better suited to manage external price risk for a country that is a price taker in world commodity markets. This is especially the case for mineral and energy price risks where financial instruments (such as commodity swaps) exist for...

Six years into the debt crisis, questions about the relevance of policy measures to alleviate the crisis still abound. Conditionality by international financial institutions and rescheduling by commercial creditors have been dismissed in favor of debt reduction as strategies for restoring the...

The market prices of developing countries'debts are imperfect indicators of the countries'payment capacity for three reasons: the concave shape of the debt's payoff structure, the presence of third-party guarantees, and the differences in the terms of various debt claims. Claessens and Pennacchi...

In evaluating the benefits of a voluntary debt reduction scheme, look for efficiency gains that allow both debtor and creditor to gain. In particular certain debt reduction operations can: (i) increase the incentives for growth in highly indebted countries; (ii) allocate risk more efficiently...

The authors review the case for market-based debt reduction and concerted debt reduction. They explain the new menu-based approach to debt reduction and discuss why it may be preferred to market-based and concerted debt reduction. In a review of the five recent debt-reduction agreements, they...

The Brady Initiative has introduced official support for debt reduction. This new phase in the debt strategy requires a new set of tools to analyze debt deals and to study the impact of a deal on the debtor country. This paper discusses first the methodological issues involved in evaluating the...