Suchergebnisse

1. Brief history of debt management until 1989 -- 2. Brief history of debt management after 1989 -- 3. In quest of solutions : sovereign insolvency proposals, collective action clauses and recent country cases -- 4. Gleneagles, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and the US crisis -- 5. The Raffer Proposal : an international chapter 9 for countries -- 6. Debtor rights and fairness to creditors in rule of law-based insolvency systems -- 7. MDGs, debt distress and poverty : theoretical roots of policies protecting the poor in debtor countries -- 8. Poverty, debtor protection and the MDGs -- 9. Debt distress, global public goods and a global development partnership -- 10. NGO advocacy for debt reduction cum debtor protection -- 11. The concept of sustainability of international financial institutions -- 12. Problems of overoptimism and ownership -- 13. MDGs and preferred creditor status -- 14. Lending or granting : ODA and the MDGs.

ABSTRACT Comparing List's development problem to Dutch Disease, as generalized by Bresser-Pereira, one sees quite a few similarities. While the exchange rate was understandably of no concern to List, it is meanwhile one if not the most important determinant of trade flows. This generalized Dutch Disease approach is a valuable contribution to the debate on appropriate economic policies in Southern countries. It shows a way to counter mal-developments. It certainly deserves further discussion because quite a few countries suffer from it. Bresser's arguments fit very well into other unorthodox approaches that also tried to counter the inefficiency of really existing markets with workable proposals, which orthodoxy has quite successfully supressed. This paper also makes a proposal that might help for agro-exporting countries.

Argentina and Greece were victims of neoliberal policy: they liberalized, deregulated and quit their own monetary and exchange rate policy. Both were presented as successful until the crisis; the International Monetary Fund and the European Union are extremely guilty of the crisis. However, Argentina enjoyed better conditions to get out of the crisis and to defend the welfare of its people until a new government fundamentally changed policies. Although Greece had the advantage of maintaining its own jurisdiction, the European Union torpedoed that prerrogative. ; Argentina y Grecia fueron víctimas del neoliberalismo: liberalizaron, desregularon, y renunciaron a una política monetaria y cambiaria propia. Hasta el estallido de sus crisis, ambos países fueron presentados como exitosos; en los dos casos, el Fondo Monetario Internacional y sobre todo la Unión Europea en Grecia, tuvieron gran culpa de la crisis. Sin embargo, Argentina gozó de mejores condiciones para salir de ella y defender el bienestar de su pueblo, hasta que un nuevo gobierno cambió radicalmente las políticas. Y aunque Grecia tuvo la ventaja de mantener su propia jurisdicción, la Unión Europea torpedeó esa prerrogativa.

This paper tries to assess the dimensions of an international tax on oil that could counterbalance the effects of price increases on the Third World. Such schemes are necessary corollaries of the declaration of a New International Economic Order and in the long run even in the interest of industrialized countries. Part of the price paid by importing firms should be refunded to governments of net-importing developing countries. Assuming a ''maximum-solution" of paying the differences between current and 1972 prices, the sums needed are relatively small. During the seventies (except 1979) these sums, added to development assistance actually given by OECD countries , would not have even reached the promised 0.7 % aid target if all developing countries had benefited. If only the poor had been considered (Least Developed and Most Seriously Affected Countries) much smaller sums would have been sufficient. In 1979 only around 0.02 % and 0.075 % of OECD GNP would have picked up the bill for these groups respectively. The tax-rates on exports would always have been smaller than value-added-tax rates in Northern countries. Such sacrifices to help the poor seem tolerable.

Abstract
Reviewing and commenting on Lienau's book Rethinking Sovereign Debt, Politics, Reputation, and Legitimacy, this paper agrees with most of her points, aiming at supporting and complementing rather than contradicting her line of argument. It wants to corroborate her points as well as to bring up aspects that the book does not discuss. It presents two main comments on the more civilized treatment of sovereign debtors before WWII, and on the role of the Bretton Woods Institutions after 1945 that – as Lienau correctly notes – changed the positon of debtors fundamentally. The paper shows that going further back into history than the book did, namely sovereign debts in the nineteenth century, strongly corroborates Lienau's line of argument regarding the period before WWII. The paper complements the role of the Bretton Woods Institutions with further facts, arguing that their strongly statist view is also self-serving and helpful to support multilateral lending practices violating these institutions' statutes. Finally, the new tendency back to a non-statist regime she rightly observes is commented on, pointing out that present debt management in the eurozone constitutes a considerable backlash.

Textbook theory ignores capital flows: trade determines exchange rates and specialisation. Approaches taking the effects of capital movements adequately into account are needed, and a new theory of economic policy including measures to protect the real economy from external volatility. Equilibrating textbook mechanisms cannot work unless trade-caused surpluses and deficits set exchange rates. To allow orthodox trade theory to work one must hinder capital flows from destroying its very basis, which the IMF and wrong regulatory decisions have done, penalising production and trade. A new, real economy based theory is proposed, a Neoclassical agenda of controlling capital flows and speculation.