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In for a Penny, In for a 100 Billion Pounds: Quantifying the Welfare Benefits from Debt Relief

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Wright

    (UCLA)

  • Christine Richmond

    (International Monetary Fund)

  • Daniel Dias

    (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and CEMAPRE)

Abstract

Since 1989, creditor countries have provided debt relief to developing countries worth more than 100 billion US dollars. Prominent lobby groups are campaigning for a further 400 billion US dollars in debt relief to be provided in the near future. How much could developing country’s gain from debt relief? How costly is it to provide debt relief? Would debt relief increase social welfare? And if so, to which countries should it be most urgently directed? In this paper, we develop a framework for measuring the marginal welfare gain from debt relief and indicate when this marginal measure can be used to estimate the total welfare benefit of debt relief. We then apply this framework to data on the debts of 72 developing countries to form an estimate of the global social welfare benefits of debt forgiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Wright & Christine Richmond & Daniel Dias, 2013. "In for a Penny, In for a 100 Billion Pounds: Quantifying the Welfare Benefits from Debt Relief," 2013 Meeting Papers 646, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed013:646
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    2. Dias, Daniel A. & Richmond, Christine & Wright, Mark L.J., 2014. "The stock of external sovereign debt: Can we take the data at ‘face value’?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 1-17.
    3. Jeromin Zettelmeyer & Christoph Trebesch & Mitu Gulati, 2013. "The Greek debt restructuring: an autopsy [Greek bond buyback boondoggle]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 28(75), pages 513-563.
    4. Lorenzo Forni & Geremia Palomba & Joana Pereira & Christine Richmond, 2021. "Sovereign debt restructuring and growth," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(2), pages 671-697.
    5. Reinhart, Carmen & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," CEPR Discussion Papers 10195, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Carmen M. Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "Sovereign Debt Relief and Its Aftermath," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 215-251.
    7. Michael Tomz & Mark L.J. Wright, 2013. "Empirical Research on Sovereign Debt and Default," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 247-272, May.

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