Delivering on Debt Relief: From IMF Gold to a New Aid Architecture

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Institute for International Economics, 2002 - Business & Economics - 162 pages

This study brings readers up to date on the complicated and controversial subject of debt relief for the poorest countries of the world. What has actually been achieved? Has debt relief provided truly additional resources to fight poverty? How will the design and timing of the "enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative" affect the development prospects of the world's poorest countries and their people? The study then moves on to address several broader policy questions: Is debt relief a step toward more efficient and equitable government spending, building better institutions, and attracting productive private investment in the poorest countries? Who pays for debt relief? Is there a case for further relief? Most important, how can the case for debt relief be sustained in a broader effort to combat poverty in the poorest countries?

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About the author (2002)

John Williamson, Senior Fellow since 1981, was on leave as Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank during 1996-99; Economics professor at Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (1978-81), University of Warwick (1970-77), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967, 1980), University of York (1963-68), and Princeton University (1962-63); Adviser to the International Monetary Fund (1972-74); & Economic Consultant to the UK Treasury (1968-70). He is author or editor of numerous studies on international monetary & developing world debt issues, including The Crawling Band as an Exchange Rate Regime (1996), What Role for Currency Boards? (1995), Estimating Equilibrium Exchange Rates (1994), The Political Economy of Policy Reform (1993), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? (1990) & Targets & Indicators: A Blueprint for the International Coordination of Economic Policy with Marcus Miller (1987).