In the wake of the current financial and economic crises, the economies of sub-Saharan Africa find themselves squeezed between likely reductions in official development assistance and the pressing challenge to eradicate poverty. Public expenditure allocation to the social sector and to public...

In the wake of the current financial and economic crises, the economies of sub-Saharan Africa find themselves squeezed between likely reductions in official development assistance and the pressing challenge to eradicate poverty. Public expenditure allocation to the social sector and to public...

The paper investigates the relationship between external debt and economic growth, focusing on the role played by the policy and institutional framework. Results for a panel of 114 developing countries show that the debt-growth nexus depends on institutions and policies. The Debt-Laffer curve...

This paper investigates the relationship between external indebtedness and economic growth, with a particular attention to LICs, for which the theoretical arguments of debt overhang and liquidity constraint have to be reconsidered. The estimation of a growth model, with a panel of 121 developing...

The UK's Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010 aims to ensure that UK courts neither give nor enforce a judgment allowing recovery against Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (‘HIPC') on covered debts exceeding the amount calculated as sustainable under the HIPC Initiative.Some have objected...

This paper examines a number of structural factors affecting the external debt sustainability of HIPC completion point countries. It shows that (i) while comparing favorably with other low-income countries, the policy and institutional frameworks of completion point countries in general are...

High levels of government debt depress productive investment in a number of ways. High outstanding debt keeps market interest rates high crowding out private investment. Risk of default reduces incentives to invest or creates adverse selection in the mix of investments. Government revenue must...

In this paper we broaden the standard debt sustainability framework used in the IMF-WB Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative to include the analysis of domestic public debt and other feedback effects into the usual debt sustainability analysis (DSA). The latter does not take into...

Following the 1980s debt crisis a consensus has emerged that there is a debt threshold in the debt-growth relationship. This paper estimates the debt threshold empirically using endogenous threshold model proposed by Hansen (1996, 2000) and several other modelling strategies to check the...

This paper investigates the relationship between external debt and economic growth in poor countries. The adverse effects of external debt on economic performance are due to the crowding out of public investment and to the disincentive effects, because of debt overhang and uncertainty....