When Is External Debt Sustainable?

Kraay, Aart ; Nehru, Vikram

Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ACCUMULATION OF ARREARS;    AID EFFECTIVENESS;    ARREARS;    BALANCE OF PAYMENTS;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lhl006
RP-ID  :  77527

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The article empirically examines thedeterminants of debt distress, defined as periods in whichcountries resort to any of three forms of exceptionalfinance: significant arrears on external debt, Paris Clubrescheduling, and non-concessional International MonetaryFund lending. Probit regressions show that three factorsexplain a substantial fraction of the cross-country andtime-series variation in the incidence of debt distress: thedebt burden, the quality of policies and institutions, andshocks. The relative importance of these factors varies withthe level of development. These results are robust to avariety of alternative specifications, and the corespecifications have substantial out-of-sample predictivepower. The quantitative implications of these results areexamined for the lending strategies of official creditors.