Publication:
Addressing Debt Vulnerabilities in Small States: The Potential Role of New Financing Instruments

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (895.24 KB)
704 downloads
English Text (125.82 KB)
43 downloads
Date
2016-03
ISSN
Published
2016-03
Editor(s)
Abstract
The papers in this series aim to provide a vehicle for publishing preliminary results on Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management (MFM) topics to encourage discussion and debate. This paper explores two new financing mechanisms that multilateral and bilateral development agencies could consider deploying to address problems of debt sustainability in small states. In this paper the authors provide an initial assessment of these proposals, informed by analysis of small state indebtedness and recent debt dynamics. Proposed financing instruments are predicated on assumptions that small states face high levels of indebtedness, and that reducing debt levels while increasing climate resilience could sustainably reduce such vulnerabilities. The authors find that levels of indebtedness vary widely across small states. Analysis of small state debt dynamics shows that small state debt accumulation has been driven by large primary and current account deficits and slow economic growth. Debt reduction from new mechanisms can only be expected to be sustainable, therefore, if countries simultaneously address the macroeconomic imbalances driving debt accumulation. The authors demonstrate that, while exposure to natural disasters is likely to have exacerbated economic management challenges in some small states, such exposures are unlikely to be the only important cause of indebtedness. The authors conclude that proposed new financing instruments can potentially help reduce small state debt burdens and gain fiscal space for climate adaptation but will not present a sustainable solution to problems of small state debt risks unless they involve macroeconomic and structural reforms to address the underlying imbalances driving rapid debt accumulation.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Haque, Tobias; Partow, Zeinab; Varma, Sona; Oliveira, Luiz Edgard. 2016. Addressing Debt Vulnerabilities in Small States: The Potential Role of New Financing Instruments. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24009 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Debt Relief and Beyond : Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead
    (World Bank, 2009) Primo Braga, Carlos A.; Domeland, Dorte; Primo Braga, Carlos A.; Domeland, Dorte
    Heavily indebted low-income countries benefited from significant debt relief over the past decade. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), assistance of about $117 billion in nominal terms had been committed to 35 HIPC as of end-April 2009. This debt relief represents about half of the 2007 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of these countries, whose debt burden is expected to drop by more than 80 percent once full debt relief is granted. As a result of relief already provided, debt-service payments have plummeted and expenditures on pro-poor growth programs increased. The book is divided into four parts. Part one examines the design of debt-relief initiatives and provides evidence of its effect on education, health, and economic growth. Part two describes the risks and opportunities developing countries face following debt relief. It identifies how they can safeguard debt sustainability; describes the role of sovereign risk for private sector access to capital; and draws lessons from the experience of market-access countries on the links between sovereign debt and development. Part three examines the concept and various policy proposals of dealing with 'odious' debt. Part four looks at debt management, debt restructuring, and the interplay between debt and fiscal policies. It provides guidance on debut sovereign bond issues; examines the issuance and management of sub-national debt; describes the challenges of crafting fiscal policy and managing debt and oil revenues in a (temporarily) oil-rich country (the Republic of Congo); and draws lessons from Chile's experiences using debt swaps in the 1980s.
  • Publication
    Managing State Debt and Ensuring Solvency : The Indian Experience
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Rangarajan, C.; Prasad, Abha
    The paper presents the policymakers perspective on the reforms undertaken to manage states debt and ensure solvency. While the sustained high growth rates of the Indian economy played a part in alleviating the interest burden on debt and ensuring that the debt does not grow in an explosive trajectory, major reforms were implemented to reverse the fiscal decline, develop fiscal responsibility rules to ensure sustained adjustment, and move toward a market-based financing of state deficits. The serious efforts at fiscal consolidation and institutional reforms have enabled states to set on the path toward fiscal correction. Nonetheless, weak global growth prospects and the risk of a further rise in global commodity and fuel prices could generate the dilemma of needing to compress expenditures for ensuring fiscal sustainability while simultaneously needing counter-cyclical spending to boost growth, and challenge the fiscal adjustment process.
  • Publication
    Debt Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Battaile, William; Hernández, F. Leonardo; Norambuena, Vivian
    Sub-Saharan African countries as a group showed a considerable reduction in public and external indebtedness in the early 2000s as a result of debt relief programs, higher economic growth, and improved fiscal management for some countries. More recently, however, vulnerabilities in some countries are on the rise, including a few with very rapid debt accumulation. This paper looks at the heterogeneous experiences across Sub-Saharan African countries and the detailed dynamics that have driven changes in public debt since the global financial crisis. Borrowing to support fiscal deficits since 2009, including through domestic markets and Eurobond issuance, has driven a net increase in public debt for all countries except oil exporters benefitting from buoyant commodity prices and fragile states receiving post-2008 Highly Indebted Poor Country relief. Current account deficits and foreign direct investment inflows drove the external debt dynamics, with balance of payments problems associated with very rapid external debt accumulation in some cases. Pockets of increasing vulnerabilities of debt financing profiles and sensitivity of debt burden indicators to macro-fiscal shocks require close monitoring. Specific risks that policy makers in Sub-Saharan Africa need to pay attention to going forward include the recent fall in commodity prices, especially oil, the slowdown in China and the sluggish recovery in Europe, dependence on non-debt-creating flows, and accounting for contingent liabilities.
  • Publication
    Financial Globalization and the Russian Crisis of 1998
    (2010-05-01) Pinto, Brian; Ulatov, Sergei
    Russia had more-or-less completed the privatization of its manufacturing and natural resource sectors by the end of 1997. And in February 1998, the annual inflation rate at last dipped into the single digits. Privatization should have helped with stronger micro-foundations for growth. The conquest of inflation should have cemented macroeconomic credibility, lowered real interest rates, and spurred investment. Instead, Russia suffered a massive public debt-exchange rate-banking crisis just six months later, in August 1998. In showing how this turn of events unfolded, the authors focus on the interaction among Russia's deteriorating fiscal fundamentals, its weak micro-foundations of growth and financial globalization. They argue that the expectation of a large official bailout in the final 10 weeks before the meltdown played an important role, with Russia's external debt increasing by $16 billion or 8 percent of post-crisis gross domestic product during this time. The lessons and insights extracted from the 1998 Russian crisis are of general applicability, oil and geopolitics notwithstanding. These include a discussion of when financial globalization might actually hurt and a cutoff in market access might actually help; circumstances in which an official bailout could backfire; and why financial engineering tends to fail when fiscal solvency problems are present.
  • Publication
    Do Middle-Income Countries Continue to Have the Ability to Deal with the Global Financial Crisis?
    (2010-07-01) van Doorn, Ralph; Suri, Vivek; Gooptu, Sudarshan
    This paper introduces an "index of macroeconomic space" -- demonstrating the ability of a country to run a countercyclical fiscal policy or a fiscal stimulus at any point in time -- to show how a sample of 20 mostly middle-income countries had entered the 2008 global financial crisis with different initial conditions that, in turn, determined their ability to respond to this crisis. Since 2008, many have implemented expansionary fiscal policies and have used up available macroeconomic space. Most have had to resort to increased borrowing by the public sector, both externally and domestically. Can the middle-income countries restore their pre-2008 macroeconomic space (to the level given by historical averages of key macroeconomic variables) or contain it from further deterioration in the medium term? In an endeavor to address this question, this paper shows, through illustrative scenarios, that the room to maneuver for some countries is somewhat limited unless they embark on severe, unprecedented fiscal adjustments or they may need more time to do so than current projections seem to suggest.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Global Economic Prospects, June 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10) World Bank
    The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.
  • Publication
    Digital Progress and Trends Report 2023
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-05) World Bank
    Digitalization is the transformational opportunity of our time. The digital sector has become a powerhouse of innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Value added in the IT services sector grew at 8 percent annually during 2000–22, nearly twice as fast as the global economy. Employment growth in IT services reached 7 percent annually, six times higher than total employment growth. The diffusion and adoption of digital technologies are just as critical as their invention. Digital uptake has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1.5 billion new internet users added from 2018 to 2022. The share of firms investing in digital solutions around the world has more than doubled from 2020 to 2022. Low-income countries, vulnerable populations, and small firms, however, have been falling behind, while transformative digital innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) have been accelerating in higher-income countries. Although more than 90 percent of the population in high-income countries was online in 2022, only one in four people in low-income countries used the internet, and the speed of their connection was typically only a small fraction of that in wealthier countries. As businesses in technologically advanced countries integrate generative AI into their products and services, less than half of the businesses in many low- and middle-income countries have an internet connection. The growing digital divide is exacerbating the poverty and productivity gaps between richer and poorer economies. The Digital Progress and Trends Report series will track global digitalization progress and highlight policy trends, debates, and implications for low- and middle-income countries. The series adds to the global efforts to study the progress and trends of digitalization in two main ways: · By compiling, curating, and analyzing data from diverse sources to present a comprehensive picture of digitalization in low- and middle-income countries, including in-depth analyses on understudied topics. · By developing insights on policy opportunities, challenges, and debates and reflecting the perspectives of various stakeholders and the World Bank’s operational experiences. This report, the first in the series, aims to inform evidence-based policy making and motivate action among internal and external audiences and stakeholders. The report will bring global attention to high-performing countries that have valuable experience to share as well as to areas where efforts will need to be redoubled.
  • Publication
    Global Economic Prospects, January 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16) World Bank
    Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.
  • Publication
    Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition
    (Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank, 2016-09-13) Gertler, Paul J.; Martinez, Sebastian; Premand, Patrick; Rawlings, Laura B.; Vermeersch, Christel M. J.
    The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.
  • Publication
    Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006) Alsop, Ruth; Bertelsen, Mette; Holland, Jeremy
    This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.