Debt Relief Effectiveness and Institution Building

The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries. Besides, the relationship between debt relief and institutional change is investigated to assess whether donors are moving towards and ex-post governance conditionality. Results show that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance but it is correlated with increasing domestic debt in HIPCs, undermining the positive achievements in reducing external debt service. Finally, there is evidence that donors are moving towards a more sensible allocation of debt forgiveness, rewarding countries with better policies and institutions.HIPC, Debt Relief, Institutions

The debt-growth nexus in poor countries: a reassessment

This paper investigates the relationship between external indebtedness and economic growth, with a particular attention to LICs, for which the theoretical arguments of debt overhang and liquidity constraint have to be reconsidered. The estimation of a growth model, with a panel of 121 developing countries, supports a negative and linear relationship between past values of the NPV of external public debt and current economic growth. This is due to the ?extended debt overhang?, according to which a large indebtedness leads to misallocation of capital and discourage long-term investment and structural reforms. This work underlines the critical role of economic policies and institutions, the necessity of focusing on LICs and fostering macroeconomic stability.External Debt,HIPC,Debt Relief,Economic Growth

Total Public Debt and Growth in Developing Countries

The global crisis and the expansionary government reaction in many countries has revamped the at-tention of policy makers and academics on the growth effects of large public debts. Recent empiri-cal studies investigate the impact of public debt on growth in advanced and emerging countries. This paper aims at complementing the existing evidence focusing on developing countries, where the increase in domestic borrowing, already started before the crisis, requires a more comprehensive analysis, based not only on external debt, but on total public debt. Results on a panel of low- and middle-income countries over the period 1990-2007 show that public debt has a negative impact on output growth up to a threshold of 90 percent of GDP, beyond which its effect becomes irrelevant. This non-linear effect can be explained by country-specific factors since debt overhang is a growth constraint only in countries with sound macroeconomic policies and stable institutions.Domestic debt, Public debt, growth

IMF Lending in Low- and Middle-Income Countries in the Wake of the Global Crisis

In the wake of the global crisis the International Monetary Fund (IMF) increased its exposure to low- and middle-income countries and boosted the overhaul of its lending approach to enhance its role in preventing crises. This paper tests whether IMF lending has targeted countries most affected by the crisis in order to dampen contagion effects and assesses to what extent the Fund\'s strategy has been driven by political-economy interests of its major shareholders. Results show that political similarity between borrowers and G7 governments has influenced the participation in IMF pro-grams, especially where the crisis was severe. In addition, the extent of the crisis and the economic interest of Western countries have affected the size of the loan.Global crisis, IMF programs, Washington Consensus, growth

Competition and Relationship Lending: Friends or Foes?

Recent empirical findings by Elsas (2005) and Degryse and Ongena (2007) document a U-shaped effect of market concentration on relationship lending which cannot be easily accommodated by the investment and strategic theories of relationship lending. In this paper, we suggest that this non-monotonicity can be explained by looking at the organizational structure of local credit markets. We provide evidence that marginal increases in interbank competition are detrimental to relationship lending in markets where large and out-of-market banks are predominant. On the contrary, where relational-based lending technologies are al-ready widely in use in the market by a large group of small mutual banks, an increase in competition may drive banks to further cultivate their extensive ties with customers.interbank competition, market organizational structure, relationship lending

External debt sustainability and domestic debt in Heavily Indebted Poor Countries

In this paper we stress the limits of the current debt sustainability framework used in the IMF-WB HIPC Initiative and the necessity to include domestic public debt into the analysis. The standard sustainability analysis does not take into account the fully-fledged budget constraint and the feedback effects of the fiscal and monetary adjustment required by multilateral programs. The switch from foreign to domestic borrowing, and rising domestic real interest rates are likely to undermine the overall sustainability and the success of debt relief programs. This work focuses on the evaluation of public debt sustainability in a simple accounting framework. We use data on external public debt (multilateral and bilateral) and on domestic public debt to underline how the inclusion of domestic debt into the analysis undermines the sustainability target.HIPC; Domestic debt; Debt sustainability; Debt Relief

Determinants of international migrations to Italian provinces

International migration flows constitute one of the most policy-relevant elements of modern economies. The Italian experience is a case of particular interest given the rapid growth of immigration flows, the large number of countries of origin involved, and regional economic heterogeneity. This paper analyses the bilateral stocks of migrants coming from 142 countries and living in 103 Italian provinces to ascertain what characteristics of home countries and destination provinces are associated with international migrations. The results of the estimation of a gravity model on the stock of migrants show that economic, demographic and institutional variables are correlated with migration patterns. In light of the recent Arab Spring, it is interesting to note that migrants come to Italy predominantly from geographically close, democratic and middle-income countries.International migrations, Italy, Gravity model

Mutual Loan-Guarantee Societies, Small Firms and Banks: An Empirical Investigation

The paper analyzes the relationships between mutual loan-guarantee societies (MLGS), small firms and banks trying to evaluate the role played by the guarantees granted by MLGSs and by different banks on the availability and the cost of credit. We focus on a sample of firms member of a specific MLGS and we run different econometric exercises in order to identify the effects of the interaction between local firms, banks and MLGS on credit rationing, on the cost of credit, and on the time and the number of guarantees required to obtain a line of credit. Our findings suggest a critical relevance of the MLGS guarantees on the local firms’ credit access and conditions. Finally, while the existing evidence points out a reduction in the cost of credit due to MLGSs intermediation, our analysis stresses the heterogeneity of the benefits for local firms, which depends substantially by the guarantees provided by the MLGS and by the reference banks.Mutual Loan Guarantee Societies (MLGS), Guarantee, Small business lending, Local banks

Debt Relief Effectiveness and Institution Building

The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries. Besides, the relationship between debt relief and institutional change is investigated to assess whether donors are moving towards and ex-post governance conditionality. Results show that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance but it is correlated with increasing domestic debt in HIPCs, undermining the positive achievements in reducing external debt service. Finally, there is evidence that donors are moving towards a more sensible allocation of debt forgiveness, rewarding countries with better policies and institutions

Individual Earnings, International Outsourcing and Technological Change.

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the relative effects of international outsourcing of materials and services and of ICT capital deepening on wage inequality between blue and white collars in the Italian manufacturing industry during the period 1985-1999. We merge an administrative data set on workers\' wages and individual characteristics with data on imported inputs from Italian input-output tables and other sector-level variables. Our results confirm that both material and service outsourcing widen the skilled/unskilled wage gap while ICT capital deepening positively affects real wages regardless of the worker\'s status. However, important differences emerge when the overall sample is split between traditional and innovative sectors.International Outsourcing, ICT, Wage Inequality