We analyse the debt dynamics in countries that benefited from the HIPC/MDRI debt relief initiatives with a view to applying a probabilistic approach to estimating future debt paths for those countries. We extend the probabilistic approach to public debt sustainability analysis (DSA) proposed by...

This discussion paper examines in its first part, the role of private investment in economic growth. While theoretical growth models developed in the economics literature, make no distinction between private, and public components of investment, there is an emerging appreciation that private...

In recent years, the South Caucasus and Central Asia countries (CCA-6) have received significant foreign exchange inflows. While a healthy reserve buffer is desirable to selfinsure against external crises, holding international reserves also involves costs. We analyze the adequacy of CCA-6...

Concentrated distribution of international reserves is puzzling. I show that the growth rates of international reserves bear only a very weak relationship to their initial stocks (scaled by GDP or in absolute terms), and that, by implication, the cross-sectional distribution of reserves conforms...

The report is part of the continued investigation on the public-private investment relationship, and its focus for this year is on the quality of public investment, its interaction with corruption, and the resulting impact on private investment. The first chapter provides statistics on trends in...

This fifth edition of Trends in Private Investment in Developing Countries provides private and public investment data from 1970 through 1992. The Discussion Paper also includes aggregate data on net foreign direct investment and a brief discussion of the effects of recent privatization...

The first part of the discussion paper documents trends in private and public fixed investment. On average for the 47 countries covered (including, for the first time in this series, China), 1997 was a record year for private investment, which rose from a low of 11.2 percent of GDP in 1985 to...

This paper examines the implications of elevated global food prices for inflation in select Central Asian economies - Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The findings suggest that global food inflation has significant short-run effects that build over time. Inflation...

We analyse the debt dynamics in countries that benefited from the HIPC/MDRI debt relief initiatives with a view to applying a probabilistic approach to estimating future debt paths for those countries. We extend the probabilistic approach to public debt sustainability analysis (DSA) proposed by...