Lending to the Poorest Countries : A New Counter-Cyclical Debt Instrument

Daniel Coheni ; Hélène Djoufelkit-Cotteneti ; Pierre Jacquet ; Cécile Valadier iOECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

关键词: low income countries;    export Shocks;    Soft Loan;   

DOI  :  https://doi.org/10.1787/242606541087

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: OECD iLibrary

【 摘 要 】

One of the particular features of poor countries’ economies is their volatility, due mostly to their dependence on commodities. The paper shows that this volatility is a prime factor behind the debt crises of the poorest countries. It advocates the adoption by donors of a new lending instrument: the countercyclical loan (CCL). The key idea is to reduce the grace period of a typical concessional loan, from 10 to 5 years, and to keep the remaining grace periods as an asset that the country can draw upon, when a bad shock occurs. If no such bad shocks happen, or infrequently enough, the “floating grace” is redeemed to the country at the end of the loan as a repayment in advance without penalties.