The recent financial crisis raises important issues about the transmission of financial shocks across borders. In this paper, a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model is constructed to assess the relevance of international spillovers following a historical slowdown in U.S. equity prices. The...

This paper proposes a two-step, market-based approach to debt reduction: Step 1. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) would offer holders of debt of the countries with an EFSF programme (probably Greece, Ireland and Portugal = GIP) an exchange into EFSF paper at the market price...

Intercreditor equity represents one of the main objectives of bankruptcy proceedings. Yet, recent restructurings of sovereign debt suggest that violation of intercreditor equity is common. While existing contractual provisions, and guidelines issued by creditor committees, establish fundamental...

The study presents an analysis of the information content of IMF’s Data Quality Assessment Framework (DQAF) indicators. There are significant differences in the quantity of information between DQAF dimensions and sub-dimensions. The most informative DQAF dimension is accessibility,...

We use bank level data to study the efficiency of banks in Sub-Saharan African middle-income countries and provide possible explanations for the difference in the efficiency levels of banks. We find that banks, on average, could save 20-30 percent of their total costs if they were operating...

Country practices towards managing financial risks on a sovereign balance sheet continue to evolve. Each crisis period, and its legacy on sovereign balance sheets, reaffirms the need for strengthening financial risk management. This paper discusses some salient features embedded in in the...

This paper focuses on Mali’s First Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility and Request for Waiver of Nonobservance Performance Criteria. Program implementation in 2004 was mixed. The authorities stuck to their fiscal program, meeting all...

This paper presents an assessment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's eligibility for assistance under the enhanced initiative for heavily indebted poor countries. The country has made remarkable progress in consolidating the peace process, stabilizing the economic situation, and creating...

The paper discusses the consideration of Honduras’s Enhanced Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). The interim relief provided under the enhanced HIPC Initiative has allowed the government to increase social spending. Controlling the public sector wage bill and...