Debt Service

WP/05/26 Stabilization, Debt, and Fiscal Policy in the Caribbean Ratna Sahay ... author would like to thank the IMF desk economists for the data, Pedro Rodríguez and Ping Wang for help in preparing this paper, and WHD seminar participants, Paul Cashin, Prachi Mishra, Charles ...

Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous and economically vibrant province. Its fiscal health, therefore, is crucial to the fiscal stability and economic development of Pakistan as a whole. By end-June 2011, Punjab’s outstanding debt stood at Rs. 413 billion, or 4.0% of Gross Subnational Domestic Product (GSDP). The low debt level is perhaps not surprising given the historical barriers to borrowing imposed at the federal level. But this has changed profoundly with enactment of the 18th Constitutional Amendment which has allowed provinces to borrow domestically and externally, subject to limits imposed by National Economic Council (NEC). This change has heightened the need to examine what Punjab owes and the question of provincial debt sustainability in general. As there is no threshold defined for subnational debt levels, this sustainability analysis considers unsustainable fiscal policies and borrowing strategy to be those that lead to an explosive accumulation of debt such that it would...

While these studies illustrate generally the effect of transport on trade flow patterns and the importance of transport costs to trade success, some use distance as a proxy for transport costs in their analysis. High transport costs, however, can be explained by many other factors, such as lower cargo volumes, trade flow imbalances, inadequate infrastructure, onerous border and cargo processing procedures, and port inefficiencies. Port costs, for example, represent about 8-12 percent of total transport costs from product origin to destination. Shippers, who consider port costs as one of the very few, if not the only, controllable costs in the logistics chain, make shipping decisions in part based on those costs. To the extent that port costs are a proxy for port performance (efficiency), efficiency influences shippers' choice of markets.

Within the next two decades Indonesia aspires to generate prosperity, avoid a middle-income trap and leave no one behind as it tries to catch up with high-income economies. These are ambitious goals. Realizing them requires sustained high growth and job creation, as well as reduced inequality. Can Indonesia achieve them? This report argues that the country has the potential to rise and become more prosperous and equitable. But the risk of 'floating in the middle' is real. Which pathway the economy will take depends on: (i) the adoption of a growth strategy that unleashes the productivity potential of the economy; and (ii) consistent implementation of a few, long-standing, high-priority structural reforms to boost growth and share prosperity more widely. Indonesia is fortunate to have options in financing these reforms without threatening its long-term fiscal outlook. The difficulties lie in getting the reforms implemented in a complex institutional and decentralized framewor...

This report analyses the main developments in housing finance in the euro area in the decade, covering the period from 1999 to 2007. It looks at mortgage indebtedness, various characteristics of loans for house purchase, the funding of such loans and the spreads between the interest rates on loans granted by banks and the interest rates banks had to pay on their funding, or the return they made on alternative investments. In addition, the report contains a comparison of key aspects of housing finance in the euro area with those in the United Kingdom and the United States. At the end, the report briefly discusses aspects of the transmission of monetary policy to the economy. JEL Classification: D14, E44, E5, G21, R21.

Actuala criză a determinat şi lipsa sau slăbirea accentuată a unor factori externi
care ar fi fost de natură să contribuie la o dezvoltare economică mai rapidă,
precum investiţiile străine directe, creditele mamă-fiică în cadrul sectorului
bancar şi în cel al companiilor nefinanciare.
Studiul arată că măsurile economice necesare a fi adoptate trebuie să atingă concomitent mai multe obiective economice: (i) în primul rând păstrarea macroechilibrelor greu recâştigate, (ii) stimularea cererii interne, în special pe componenta mai semnificativă – consumul, (iii) folosirea spaţiului monetar existent, (iv)
neafectarea, prin costuri bugetare, a procesului de consolidare fiscală către
obiectivele asumate prin tratatele europene, (v) revigorarea procesului de
creditare şi, nu în ultimul rând, (vi) atenuarea dinamicii crescătoare a volumului
de credite neperformante în contextul supra-îndatorării populaţiei.

The paper is arranged in six sections: an update describing how modern microfinance operates in Bangladesh; explanations of why growth was so aggressive from 2002 to 2007; the story of how Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) sensed a looming crisis and how they reacted between 2008 and 2010; a description of the kind of crisis averted by MFIs and their clients; a summary of the explanations of how the crisis was avoided; and identification of five emerging trends in microfinance in Bangladesh following the marked changes in direction of the 2008-2010 period.