During tumultuous fiscal years of the past few decades, the World Bank, acting in its capacity as lender of last resort, granted unsecured loans to debt-ridden sovereigns. Instead of taking a lien over the state's assets, the World Bank protected its interests via a broadly-worded Negative...

This volume tests the relevance and usefulness of guarantees to public and private actors in developing countries, especially for funding development projects. The presence of guarantees from multilateral or bilateral agencies can encourage financial flows either to increase, or to go where they...