rodrik204_ISHARA S. KODIKARAAFP via Getty Images_sri lanka debt

Economics

Hvordan opprettholde veksten i utviklingsland med høy gjeld

Jan 11, 2023 Dani Rodrik , Reza Baqir, and Ishac Diwan

CAMBRIDGE – Dette kan bli et svært hardt år for utviklingslandene ettersom stadig flere land blir rammet av gjeldskriser. Flere land er allerede ute av stand til å betjene gjelden (deriblant Libanon, Sri Lanka, Russland, Surinam og Zambia) og mange andre land trenger akutt gjeldslette for å avverge økonomisk kollaps og sterkt økende fattigdom.

Den rådende måten å håndtere gjeldskriser på er å forhandle fram komplekse pakker — forhandlinger som involverer skyldnerlandet, internasjonale finansinstitusjoner og andre eksterne kreditorer. Nasjonale aktører, deriblant hjemlige obligasjonseiere og fagforeninger, spiller også en rolle ettersom de må beskytte sine egne interesser.

Forhandlingsprosessen, som involverer mange parter, kan ta lang tid. Ofte er det betydelig nasjonal og global innsats for å forsøke å påvirke resultatet til egen fordel ved å skyve en større del av tapsbyrden over på andre, samtidig som situasjonen i skyldnerlandet forverres.

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PS Events: What Economics is Missing

Neglect the insights of women, particularly in economics, and society suffers. At PS’s next virtual event, What Economics Is Missing, Minouche Shafik, Dani Rodrik, Vera Songwe, and others will debate how to create the conditions for achieving genuine inclusivity in economics.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 5 Comments on this article

Ajay Chhibber Jan 18, 2023

Good advice, but many of the countries like Egypt, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are in trouble because of terrible domestic policies and profligate spending on trophy projects. They borrowed heavily in the period of easy money and are now paying for it with defaults or near defaults. While it's also true they are victims of climate change they hardly spend any money of their own on helping poor people cope with climate adaptation. So please dish out the advice in both directions - to the IFI's but also to the country policy makers.

China deserves special mention because it's a huge debtor but has so far not shown any inclination to be sufficiently lenient with countries which are also saddled with unproductive debt related to BRI projects.

A smoother and more rule-based debt restructuring framework is needed rather than the current country by country ad hoc approach no doubt and the IMF must be asked to help prepare such a framework urgently as more and more countries drift into debt crisis. 2023 maybe a critical year for the developing world.
- Jose Oyola Jan 20, 2023
  
  Look at the evidence. Egypt is the first country that issued a Green bond, with stringent accountability requirements and record-low rates. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2022/03/02/supporting-egypt-s-inaugural-green-bond-issuance
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Dawood Mamoon Jan 18, 2023

WOW, I love this PS article. And why so? Because of the authors.

First and foremost, it has the name of Professor Dani Rodrik who has been known for writing and initiating many ideas that have eventually become the necessary guideline for both the IMF and the World Bank more so. Then respected well known Economist of Pakistan Reza Baqir who had a great stint as State Bank Governer that is the Central Bank of Pakistan. Every Economist know how close the relationship usually is between every country's central bank and the IFIs. Central Banks like State Bank provides transparency to any information that is coming out of the government and public offices. In case of Pakistan, if State Bank confirms any piece of information and decides to give it a place in its national publication, it naturally would become internationally accepted one. All the macro and micro data that has been approved by State Bank of Pakistan would soon find its place in empirical and quantitative publications of IFIs. The the third author is none other than Isaac Diwan who has been generating micro level data and analysisng it in his lab for years.

Thus the readers should take this article as a Gospel and if it is meant to advocate and influence IMF and the World Bank economist in Washington and in country offices in many of the developing regions, I think this article would be taken as a goaspel.

Now coming to the contents of the article, it is providing a reality check to both the governments in developing countries and the IFIs to move beyond rhetoric and understand the ground realities in medium to a bit long term.

Professor Rodrik does not need any introduction for how economic growth should be achieved in developing countries especially with his latest theory of productivism that asks every country in the world to go beyond macro economics and move to the processes that achieve long term productivity of private sector with intrinsic role of the government and NGOs. Though he is mostly orienting productivism towards developed economies like the US where it can really create a difference because most of the developing countries need to achieve productivity in output before achieving factor productivity and productivism. The long term lending where the debt is correlated with better socio economic performance with realistic time frames rather than still being concentrated towards macro stability is a suggestion that should be taken with seriousness by the IFIs. Understanding inclusive growth rates and making the government work for it are two different things and this amazing article is asking for the later.

If money is attached to the goal of green growth, it would structurally transform both modern and traditional societies withing developing countries with a direction of the domestic economy towards the right path for both material and human welfare.

And yes to do that, the IFIs need to be working with micro level data. For example, a significant portion of around 2 billion dollars have been committed by World Bank on one of the provinces of Pakistan namely Sindh. District level interventions can only be successful if micro data is available to all the stakeholders. Finance lab can give guidelines to the methodologies that are effective in getting the data whereas, State Bank of Pakistan can help to authenticate the effort of data collection and here we go with tangible results and the possibility of making the policy interventions a success for the IFIs.

Good Speed Professor Dani Rodrik, Professor Reza Baqir and Professor Isaac Dewan
- Jose Oyola Jan 20, 2023
  
  Not sure why this comment showers so many accolades upon the authors. What is the evidence on Pakistańs debt? 18 Trillion RPKs, largest increase in PK history. https://www.firstpost.com/world/pakistan-public-debt-soars-by-pkr-18-trillion-10525941.html
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