The subject of this paper is the agreement reached on July 23, 1989 which offered commercial creditors the choice to exchange old debt instruments for new instruments involving debt relief, but partially secured with collateral; or for unsecured instruments without debt relief, but with a new...

Key (related) factors in an analysis of debt sustainability should include: the demand for base money (or high powered money); projected fiscal balance; the real interest rate; and the rate of income growth. The author emphasizes the demand for base money, a variable that has received scant...

The report explores how the formulation of debt repayment policies can be affected by the nature of the decisionmakers and the strength of various interest groups. The authors argue that small penalties can be enough to deter default if they hurt the interests of groups that are closely...

To study the adjustment to the debt crisis, this paper compares the experience of seven"crisis"debtor countries with those of five"noncrisis"debtor countries. In response to a sharp reduction in external capital flows, the crisis countries rescheduled their debt during 1982-87. The noncrisis...

Brazil's domestic debt has posed two challenges to policymakers: it has grown very fast and, despite progress, remains extremely short in maturity. The authors analyze Brazil's experience with domestic public debt management, searching for policy prescriptions for the next few years. After...

Subnational debt markets can be a powerful force in a country's development. Through delegated monitoring by financial intermediaries and through debt placed directly with investors, subnational debt markets account for about 5 percent of GDP in Argentina and Brazil. But they remain embryonic in...

This report shows that Papua New Guinea's assets and liabilities may be poorly balanced for debt servicing. Thus, it could benefit substantially from active risk management, especially through better selection of the financial instruments in its debt portfolio. The authors present a model and...

The authors analyzed the experience of six countries (Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Portugal, Turkey, and Yugoslavia) and compared it with the experiences of Latin American countries. They conclude that some countries successfully absorbed the external shock of the 1980s by: (a) minimizing the...

The author evaluates the costs and benefits of debt and debt service reduction (DDSR) from the point of view of five countries that have concluded Brady deals: Costa Rica, Mexico, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Venezuela. He concludes that, contrary to widely held views, commercial banks have...

In 1988, the prices on the secondary market of LDC debt averaged 50 cents per dollar of face value. From the observation of such discount, this paper goes one step further and argues thatthe debt should be written down in order to account for the discrepancy between the face and market value of...