Suchergebnisse

The aim of this paper is to study empirically the influence of the growth of public debt on a set of macroeconomic variables, especially the interest rate. The approach used is that of vectorial time series analysis and not that of classical econometrics. We show that an acceleration of the growth of public debt has pernicious effects on the current account balance though an increase in national income. Hence in order to finance this an increase in the interest rate must occur.

Privatizations in the Industrial Public Sector
In Italy the rare cases of direct transfer of public enterprises to the private sector have not been decided by government, but by the public bodies which owned their capital, in view of reinforcing their own position. The privatizations which have been programmed by government have mainly been targeted to the legal form of enterprises, without changing their direction and control, which remain public. Because they have followed two different paths, the Italian privatizations have not had the same consequences as in other countries, namely an increase of government regulation of private activities, a reinforcement of capital market and a decrease of government debt. The latest program of transfer of public companies which has been presented by the Italian Cabinet does not bring any major innovations in this field.

What will become the interest rate spreads1 that still prevailed recently between the debts of individual sovereign states of the Economic and Monetary Union? These spreads, well on, will no longer result from exchange rate premiums. However, they could clearly persist. They would then derive partly from liquidity differences in relation to the issues of a reference borrower, surely the German "Bund" or the French Treasury, or a combination of the two (perhaps also with the Dutch government). But obviously spreads may also persist due to the risk of default. Therefore, what will be the extent of these differentials and how far could they increase depending on the risk? This is one of the important issues currently facing economists studying EMU, in particular because of its close link with the concerns underlying the Maastricht Treaty: possible slippage of public debt, risks of monetisation, proclaimed refusal of bail-out. ; What will become of the interest spreads on the debts of different sovereign borrowers under EMU ? Will these always be small and merely reflect differences in liquidity, as they do today, or will they progressively widen and also reflect default risk? Such are the questions posed in this study. We offer a variety of reasons for doubting that the current convergence of interest rates in the euro zone constitutes a permanent situation. Prominent among these is a large set of new data of our own construction concerning the spreads on the debts of lower-level governments, or governments without money-issuing power, for a dozen countries. Those spreads clearly give rise to the suspicion that default-risk premia may reappear in the yields on the debts of different sovereigns in EMU. ; What will become the interest rate spreads1 that still prevailed recently between the debts of individual sovereign states of the Economic and Monetary Union? These spreads, well on, will no longer result from exchange rate premiums. However, they could clearly persist. They would then derive partly from liquidity ...

Proposes strategies to relieve Niger's foreign and public debt problem.