Debt for nature swaps involve the exchange of a debtor country's external obligation for that country's agreement to use local currency instruments to support a specific environmental project, such as development of conservation management plans, training of park personnel, or environmental...

The negotiation of sovereign debt repayments and of new loans after default may yield inefficient outcomes that justify intervention by creditor country governments and international financial institutions. The author analyzes possible distortions arising in renegotiations between private...

To understand the fiscal position of a country, contingent liabilities and other sources of fiscal risk need to be considered. The authors develop a framework to assess and manage fiscal risk in Bulgaria. Bulgaria's Currency Board Arrangement has effectively imposed fiscal discipline, but leaves...

The recent East Asian financial crisis provides a natural experiment for investigating foreign exchange risk management by nonfinancial corporations. During this period, the financial crisis exposed local firms to large depreciations in exchange rates and reduced access to foreign capital. 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...

The outlook for economic development for an important group of middle-income countries has again been buoyed by substantial private capital inflows in the 1990s. As in the 1970s, this development has been met with cautious optimism. It is generally accepted that these countries need resource...

It is easy to say that the International Monetary Fund should not resort to financial rescue for countries in crisis; this is hard to do when there is no alternative. That is where collective action clauses come in. Collective action clauses are designed to facilitate debt restructuring by the...

Bulow and Rogoff showed in 1988 that auction based purchases of debt could not be an effective way to capture the secondary market discount, since the purchase pushes up the secondary market afterward. The author of this report points out another problem with cash debt buy backs - one that...

Some payment arrangements are more efficient in promoting economic growth in a market-based economy. The payment experience of industrial countries is diverse enough to identify those payment arrangements that provide the infrastructure for sustained growth and the emergence of market-based...

Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank recognize that sub - Saharan Africa (SSA) represents a difficult and complex development challenge. The author proposes that the Bank and the IMF take four institutional steps to deal effectively with the region's problems in the near...