The paper investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use World Bank’s institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we...

This is an output of the Acropolis BeFinD project. The ‘Belgian Policy Research group on Financing for Development’ (BeFinD) is a collaboration between the University of Namur (CRED), the KU Leuven (HIVA and CGGS) and the University of Antwerp (IOB) in the framework of the VLIR-UOS and...

This paper starts from the concept of ‘original sin’ to demonstrate that the development of local currency bond markets remains a priority for Sub-Saharan African countries, both as a prevention mechanism against external shocks and to exploit growth-boosting investment opportunities. We...

Sub-Saharan African governments have made significant progress in developing domestic local currency bond markets over the last decade. While this bodes well for their countries’ economic resilience and facilitates necessary investments, many challenges remain.

This paper studies the current state and drivers of the development of government local currency bond markets (LCBMs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region whose progress in developing such markets has only recently received attention in the literature. We argue that well-developed LCBMs could reduce...

This paper critically reviews three decades of official creditors’ debt relief practice in Sub-Saharan Africa from a novel angle, i.e. along debt relief’s similarities with other aid modalities. We show that debt relief is a true ‘chameleon’ which mimics different sorts of aid, from...

This paper systematically reviews recent experience with debt-for-development swaps in Indonesia, the only debtor country where the number of such operations could warrant its qualification as a genuine government debt relief and development finance policy. First, we show that the 11 swaps...

In this paper, the process for firms to decide whether or not to invest in corporate social responsibility is treated from a real option perspective. We extend the Husted (2005) framework with an important extra parameter that allows us to understand the timing of CSR investment and explain why...

In May 1999, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, made an epochal transition to democratic civilian rule following roughly thirty-three years of military dictatorship. Since 1999, Nigeria has held four successive elections, which have all been (more or less) undermined by electoral...

The question whether Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza can run for a third term at the presidential election scheduled for June has generated a great deal of debate, and it is now creating violent tensions leading to increasing refugee flows to neighbouring countries. It has even split the...