Debt Relief for Child Development

Has Debt Relief Made

Liquidity and Feasible Debt Relief∗

This paper analyzes the determinants of secondary debt market liquidity, identifying conditions under which trading in competitive markets results in sufficient ownership concentration to induce ex post efficient debt relief. The feasibility of debt relief is path-dependent, hinging upon interim economic conditions. Secondary debt markets are likely to freeze during recessions, precisely when t...

Debt Relief: A Millennium Gift for Global Health

inequality that exists between the richest and poorest nations. In its 1999 Human Development Report, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) analyzed long term trends in world income distribution. It showed that the gap in national income between the richest and poorest country in 1820 was about 3-1. By 1992, the gap had widened to 72-1. Social indicators also reveal huge inequalities ...

An Appraisal of Debt Relief for Poor Countries

The Highly Indebted Poor Countries’ (HIPC) Initiative provides debt relief to a group of highly indebted poor countries. The capacity of the multilateral financial institutions (MFIs) to manage this programme is analysed and the conclusion is drawn that it is unlikely to achieve the purposes for which it has been established. Criticism is based upon the MFIs’ own policy advice as well as that o...

Debt Relief and the Rule of Thumb: Analytical History of HIPC Debt Sustainability Targets

This paper traces the origins of HIPC debt sustainability targets. These targets are interpreted as ‘switching values’, below which countries are expected to avoid debt service problems, but as such, they do not take into account that countries encounter debt problems for a variety of reasons and at different levels of debt. Most likely the ‘true’ switching value of the debt-to-export ratio of ...