This paper discusses the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative in the perspective of sizable historical debt relief and large positive net resource flows to HIPCs. It argues that, by substantially reducing HIPCs’ debt stocks and debt service payments, the Initiative provides a...

This paper analyses debt relief efforts by creditors to alleviate the debt burden of lowincome countries. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative builds on traditional debt relief, and for the first time involves relief on multilateral debt. It seeks to reduce debt to sustainable...

This paper analyses debt relief efforts by creditors to alleviate the debt burden of lowincome countries. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative builds on traditional debt relief, and for the first time involves relief on multilateral debt. It seeks to reduce debt to sustainable...

The external debt burden of many low-income developing countries has increased significantly since the 1970s. Developments in a sample of ten countries show that the main factors behind the buildup of debt were (1) exogenous (adverse terms of trade shocks or weather), (2) a lack of sustained...

This paper investigates the sensitivity of Colombian GDP growth to the surroundingmacroeconomic environment. We estimate a Bayesian VAR model with informative steady-statepriors for the Colombian economy using quarterly data from 1995 to 2007. A variancedecomposition shows that world GDP growth...