This World Bank Discussion Paper brings together two contributions on external debt issues. The first paper discusses the insurability of sovereign debt against default. The second paper reviews numerous studies that have been conducted over the years to identify the variables that could predict...

This working paper dealing with developing countries' external debt is at the origin of a written statement presented by the Centre Europe Tiers-Monde (CETIM) during the March 2007 4th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations Organization in Geneva (item 2 : implementation of...

This paper explains why public domestic debt composition in emerging economies can be risky, namely in foreign currency, with a short maturity or indexed. It analyses empirically the determinants of these risk sources separately, developing a new large dataset compiled from national sources for...

The paper provides an analysis of Canadian deficits and debt since the early 1980s. It presents some suitable adjustments to defict measurements and considers the validity of four explanations of deficts: Ricardian equivalence, tax and spend, Keynesian, and Neoclassical. The Neoclassical view...

The paper explores whether and how current lending-of-last-resort can be extended beyond national borders. It argues that what makes lending of last resort effective at the national level is a blend of resource availability, technical discretion, ex-ante supervision, and powers of enforcement....

Over the past year and a half, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada have been developing a framework for the resolution of international financial crises that aligns incentives for all parties to deal with a crisis and preserve the integrity of the international financial system. The...

The paper discusses the role of foreign banks and foreign lending in central and east European countries from the financial-stability perspective using Bank for International Settlements data on global banking. The pattern of foreign bank involvement in the region is analyzed and the risk of...

This paper presents a model in which a high growth economy becomes susceptible to a sudden financial crisis. In the model firms are motivated to over-invest because of government subsidies and then bear the burden of the inefficiencies caused by the government distortion. We assume that the...

Since the beginning of the developing-country debt crisi in mid-1982, economists have puzzled iver its origins. Why did market forces not dater creditors from lending and debtors from borrowing so very much more than could, in retrospect, be repaid? Moreover, once the crisis was under way, why...