9,209 research outputs found
Public debt in developing countries : has the market-based model worked?
No full textOver the past 25 years, significant levels of public debt and external finance are more likely to have enhanced macroeconomic vulnerability than economic growth in developing countries. This applies not just to countries with a history of high inflation and past default, but also to those in East Asia, with a long tradition of prudent macroeconomic policies and rapid growth. The authors examine why with the help of a conceptual framework drawn from the growth, capital flows, and crisis literature for developing countries with access to the international capital markets (market access countries or MACs). They find that, while the chances of another generalized debt crisis have receded since the turbulence of the late 1990s, sovereign debt is indeed constraining growth in MACs, especially those with debt sustainability problems. Several prominent MACs have sought to address the debt and external finance problem by generating large primary fiscal surpluses, switching to flexible exchange rates, and reforming fiscal and financial institutions. Such country-led initiatives completely dominate attempts to overhaul the international financial architecture or launch new lending instruments, which have so far met with little success. While the initial results of the countries'initiatives have been encouraging, serious questions remain about the viability of the model of market-based external development finance. Beyond crisis resolution, which has received attention in the form of the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism, the international financial institutions may need to ramp up their role as providers of stable long-run development finance to MACs instead of exiting from them.
Give growth and macroeconomic stability in Russia a chance - harden budgets by eliminating nonpayments
No full textThe authors analyze the links between Russia's disappointing growth performance in the second half of the 1990s, its costly and unsuccessful stabilization, the macroeconomic meltdown of 1998, and the spectacular rise of non-payments. Non-payments flourished in an environment of fundamental inconsistency between a macroeconomic policy geared at sharp disinflation, and a microeconomic policy of bailing enterprises out through soft budget constraints. Heavy untargeted implicit subsidies flowing through the non-payments system (amounting to 10 percent of GDP annually) have stifled growth, contributed to the August 1998 meltdown, through their impact on public debt, and have made at best a questionable contribution to equity. Dismantling this system must be a top priority, along with promoting enterprise restructuring and growth (by hardening budget constraints) and medium-term macroeconomic stability (by reducing the size of subsidies). Getting the government out of the non-payments system means settling all appropriately controlled budgetary expenditures on time, and in cash, and eschewing spending arrears, thereby setting an example for enterprises, and laying the groundwork for eliminating tax offsets at all levels of government, and insisting on cash tax payments. To stop energy-related subsidies, would require not only that the government pay its own energy bills on time, and in cash, but also that the energy monopolies be empowered to disconnect non-paying clients. This will enable the government to insist that the energy monopolies in turn pay their own taxes in full, and on time.Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research
Black market premia, exchange rate unification, and inflation in sub-Saharan Africa
No full textIn countries where the black market premium on foreign exchange is exceptionally high, often more than 100 percent, lowering the black market rate to a level close to the market determined official rate will improve the balance of payments and increase exports. Floating the currency to depreciate the real exchange rate and make exports more competitive can raise inflation substantially, however, as governments replace the lost revenue from exports. Inflation will occur even if real government spending remains constant unless there are new taxes or spending cuts to compensate for the loss of implicit tax revenues. To avoid costly surges in inflation, exchange rate reform may have to proceed slowly, otherwise the depreciation is likely to meet with considerable political and social opposition as inflation rises. Once the government closes the spread between the official and black market rates, it faces a decision on whether to continue with a float permanently. Evidence from developing countries over the next few years should give some insights into this issue.Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Economic Theory&Research
Author Interview with Brian D. Anderson
No full textBrian D. Anderson was our feature artist of the week, October 19th - 23rd, 2020.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/vid_presentations/1010/thumbnail.jp
Competition policy. by Brian Ellis
No full texttag=1 data=Competition policy. by Brian Ellis
tag=2 data=Ellis, Brian
tag=3 data=Australian Rationalist,
tag=5 data=46
tag=6 data=Autumn/Winter 1998
tag=7 data=51-56.
tag=8 data=ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
tag=9 data=COMPETITION%CORPORATISATION%NATIONAL COMPETITION POLICY%PRIVATE SECTOR PUBLIC SECTOR EFFECTIVENESS%SERVICE DELIVERY%SOCIAL POLICY%INNOVATION
tag=10 data=Examines the Government's National Competition Policy in relation to encouraging R&D, and the corporisation of public services and utilites. The author is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe UNiversity and Vice-President of the Rationalist Society of Australia. Article Taken from What's New.
tag=13 data=CABExamines the Government's National Competition Policy in relation to encouraging R&D, and the corporisation of public services and utilites. The author is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe UNiversity and Vice-President of the Rationalist Society of Australia. Article Taken from What's New
Art Behind Gaming: Brian D. Anderson
No full textA discussion with author Brian D. Anderson about worldbuilding in fantasy. Part of the Art Behind Gaming Online Con.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/vid_presentations/1046/thumbnail.jp
Why Official Bailouts Tend Not To Work: An Example Motivated by Greece 2010
No full textChristophe Chamley of Boston University and Brian Pinto of the World Bank use recent events in Greece to illustrate that official bailouts tend not to work when countries have fundamental fiscal (insolvency) problems and construct a two-period numerical example to explain why this should not come as a surprise.
In Honour of Brian MacWhinney: A Personal Account
No full textWhile this volume and the writings have made it amply clear what significant contributions Professor Brian MacWhinney has made to the field at large, in this afterword, we begin with a senior member of our author team (Ping Li, PL) followed by a mid-career member (Helen Zhao, HZ) and an early career member (Zhe Gao, ZG), to provide our personal accounts of Brian not only as a leading scholar but also as a role model who touches and changes people’s lives
Ownership and corporate control in Poland : why state firms defied the odds
No full textSurvey results in Poland indicate that hard budgets and import comeption can spur state firms to adjust even when privatization lags behind. As they examine the underpinning of Polish reform, the authors address the key question of why managers instigated such adjustment. They examine how corporate ownership and control influence the behavior of state firms, as illuminated by the following survey findings and conclusions: (a) Contrary to expectations, state firms took painful adjustment measures. Enterprise managers firmly believed that privatization was coming. This belief led them to manage better, not worse; a private sector based economy means a market for managers and a premium on skilled management. (b) The excess wage tax (the much criticized"Popiwek"scheme) did restrain wage-setting behavior, judging from the wage-setting equations presented by the authors. (c) Essential to the good performance of state industries is an end to open-ended subsidies. Subsidies, rather than helping firms adjust, give them incentives to continue their past behavior and destroy any mechanism of control other claim-holders might have. (d) Commercial banks, the Polish experience shows, can be made to exercise governance over state firms. Without effective takeover mechanisms, withholding funds is their most powerful instrument. That instrument is made powerless if firms, pressured to adjust by banks, can turn to the government themselves. Banks themselves started to respond appropriately- and to play a powerful role in discipline enterprises - only after their own governance and control/incentive mechanisms had been reformed as part of the banking reforms of the fourth quarter of 1991.Economic Theory&Research,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform
Black markets for foreign exchange, real exchange rates, and inflation : overnight versus gradual reform in sub-Saharan Africa
No full textThe black market foreign exchange premium is an important implicit tax on exports, creating a conflict between the fiscal goal of financing government spending with a limited menu of tax instruments and the allocative goal of stimulating exports. In this paper, the premium is solved for in a model that includes the portfolio balance approach to exchange rates, dual exchange markets, and seignorage for financing the fiscal deficit. The steady state and dynamic implications for inflation of floats as a vehicle for unifying official and black market rates are then analyzed. Inflation could rise substantially in the new steady state as the lost revenue from exports is replaced with a higher tax on money. Further, the conditions under which undershooting or overshooting occur are parameterized. The paper is motivated by and illustrated with recent examples from sub - Saharan Africa.Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance
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