Abstract
The paradox of debt is that heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) became heavily indebted after two decades of debt relief efforts. Average policies in HIPCs 1980-97 were worse than other less-developed countries (LDCs), controlling for income. Terms of trade and wars do not show a different trend in HIPCs than in non-HIPC LDCs. Financing HIPCs shifted away from private and bilateral nonconcessional sources toward International Development Assistance and other multilateral concessional financing-but this implicit form of debt relief also failed to reduce net present value debt. The record is not encouraging for the success of current debt relief efforts.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1677-1696 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | World Development |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2002 |
Keywords
- Adjustment
- Africa
- Debt
- Foreign aid
- International Organizations
- World Bank/IMF policies
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Development
- Sociology and Political Science
- Economics and Econometrics