There is a new wave of external borrowing by African governments on private sovereign bond markets. The findings in this paper indicate that African economies pay higher-than-normal coupon rates on these markets; observed risk measures like agency ratings and debt to GDP ratios do not explain...

Despite massive investment of money and research aimed at ameliorating third-world poverty, the development strategies of the international financial institutions over the past few decades have been a profound failure. Under the tutelage of the World Bank, developing countries have experienced...

The paper documents and analyses the World Bank's promotion of foreign ownership of banking in developing countries. In the wake of two decades of financial crises following exercises of orthodox financial reform, the World Bank has not only continued to push privatisation, but now sees foreign...