In this paper, the authors discuss the possibility that the North and South may have differing technological needs. Just as the North would like to develop drugs against cancer and heart disease, and the South drugs against tropical disease, so the North's labor saving innovations are less...

Six years into the debt crisis, questions about the relevance of policy measures to alleviate the crisis still abound. Conditionality by international financial institutions and rescheduling by commercial creditors have been dismissed in favor of debt reduction as strategies for restoring the...

Closed-end national index funds (NIFs of country funds) invest primarily in the stocks of the originating countries, such as Brazil, India, and the Republic of Korea. They are typically traded in the organized exchanges of industrial countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom....

In evaluating the benefits of a voluntary debt reduction scheme, look for efficiency gains that allow both debtor and creditor to gain. In particular certain debt reduction operations can: (i) increase the incentives for growth in highly indebted countries; (ii) allocate risk more efficiently...

The authors review the case for market-based debt reduction and concerted debt reduction. They explain the new menu-based approach to debt reduction and discuss why it may be preferred to market-based and concerted debt reduction. In a review of the five recent debt-reduction agreements, they...

The Brady Initiative has introduced official support for debt reduction. This new phase in the debt strategy requires a new set of tools to analyze debt deals and to study the impact of a deal on the debtor country. This paper discusses first the methodological issues involved in evaluating the...

Private investors have an important role toplay in the ongoing process of reform in Eastern Europe. So external creditworthiness is crucial to a successful transition. Large government borrowing crowds out the formation of private contracts between international investors and domestic...

To solve the puzzle of attitudes toward debt buybacks, the authors use a model that combines considerations of debt overhang with the possibility of asymmetrical information between debtor countries and their creditors. In this environment, a debt overhang may create disincentives for a country...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the choice by debtor countries of a jointly optimal trade and debt strategy after the occurrence of some negative shocks. Choosing between export promotion and import substitution is a matter of determining whether it is more profitable to increase the...

The authors theoretically analyze country funds, focusing on emerging economies in which capital markets are not readily accessible to outside investors. They study country-fund pricing and the associated policy implications under alternative variations on segmentation of international markets....