IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1525.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Ethiopia's debt sustainable?

Author

Listed:
  • Ghani, Ejaz
  • Hyoungsoo Zang

Abstract

The debt burden facing a number of low-income countries has received considerable international attention. The international development community has begun to recognize that options aimed at providing debt relief to countries where debt is not sustainable needs to be seriously explored. In this paper, the authors build on the Branson model of debt sustainability and apply it to a severly indebted, low-income country, Ethiopia. They provide a simplified framework where debt sustainability (both domestic and external) is an integral element of macroeconomic stability. Interactions between different policy variables (such as debt, fiscal, and interest rate policies), outcome variables (such as GDP and export growth), and international economic conditions (international interest rates) jointly define whether a country is on a sustainable debt path. Equations on debt sustainability can be estimated under this framework, thus providing a good starting point for examining debt sustainability. There are three lessons from the empirical analysis of Ethiopia: 1) a strong reform program is critical in bringing the country back on a sustainable debt path; 2) the issue of debt relief requires serious consideration by the international development community; and 3) growth and resource mobilization need adequate emphasis to ensure that debt is repaid.

Suggested Citation

  • Ghani, Ejaz & Hyoungsoo Zang, 1995. "Is Ethiopia's debt sustainable?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1525, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1995/10/01/000009265_3961019151312/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Branson, William H, 1990. "Financial Market Integration, Macroeconomic Policy and the EMS," CEPR Discussion Papers 385, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Cohen, Daniel, 1988. "The Management of the Developing Countries' Debt: Guidelines and Applications to Brazil," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 2(1), pages 77-103, January.
    3. Frenkel, Jacob A & Razin, Assaf, 1987. "Fiscal Policies and the World Economy; An Intertemporal Approach (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987)," MPRA Paper 20438, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. W. E. G. Salter, 1959. "Internal And External Balance: The Role Op Price And Expenditure Effects," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(71), pages 226-238, August.
    5. Anand, Ritu & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 1989. "Inflation and the Financing of Government Expenditure: An Introductory Analysis with an Application to Turkey," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 3(1), pages 17-38, January.
    6. Fischer, Stanley & Easterly, William, 1990. "The Economic of the Government Budget Constraint," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 5(2), pages 127-142, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José Dario Uribe & Luis Ignacio Lozano, 2003. "Fiscal issues and central banks in emerging markets: the case of Colombia," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Fiscal issues and central banking in emerging economies, volume 20, pages 109-121, Bank for International Settlements.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Makin, Anthony J., 1998. "A dependent economy model of public expenditure and the exchange rate," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 453-463.
    2. Patrick Artus, 1992. "Passage à l'union économique et monétaire en Europe : effets sur la croissance et les politiques budgétaires," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 106(5), pages 123-137.
    3. Schiff, Maurice & Valdes, Alberto, 1998. "Agriculture and the macroeconomy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1967, The World Bank.
    4. Sebastian Edwards & Domingo F. Cavallo & Arminio Fraga & Jacob Frenkel, 2003. "Exchange Rate Regimes," NBER Chapters, in: Economic and Financial Crises in Emerging Market Economies, pages 31-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Buiter, Willem H., 1996. "Aspects of Fiscal Performance in some Transition Economies under Fund-supported Programs," CEPR Discussion Papers 1535, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. repec:phd:pjdevt:jpd_1990_vol__xvii_no__2-d is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Alan V. DEARDORFF, 2016. "What Do We (and Others) Mean by “The Terms of Trade”?," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 281-291, June.
    8. Ascari, Guido & Rankin, Neil, 2007. "Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 708-723, December.
    9. Boris Petkov, 2018. "Natural Resource Abundance: Is it a Blessing or is it a Curse," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 25-56, September.
    10. Macdonald, Ryan, 2007. "Real GDP and the Purchasing Power of Provincial Output," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2007046e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    11. Epstien, Gerald & Gintis, Herbert, 1989. "International Capital Markets and the Limits of National Economic Policy," WIDER Working Papers 295606, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Rodrigo Suescún M., 1997. "Commodity booms,dutch disease,and real business cycles in a small open economy: The case of coffee in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 2164, Banco de la Republica.
    13. Jacob Engwerda & Davoud Mahmoudinia & Rahim Dalali Isfahani, 2016. "Government and Central Bank Interaction under Uncertainty: A Differential Games Approach," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 20(2), pages 225-259, Spring.
    14. Sebastian Edwards, 2001. "Exchange Rate Regimes, Capital Flows and Crisis Prevention," NBER Working Papers 8529, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Vittorio Corbo, 1983. "Un Modelo de Corto Plazo para una Economía Pequeña y Abierta," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 20(60), pages 177-190.
    16. Vittorio Corbo & Stanley Fischer, "undated". "Lessons from the Chilean Stabilization and Recovery," Documentos de Trabajo 158, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    17. J. Paul Dunne a,† & Sam Perlo-Freeman ‡ & Aylin Soydan §, 2004. "Military expenditure and debt in South America," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 173-187, April.
    18. Ricardo Hausmann, 1995. "Manejo de sacudidas petroleras negativas: la experiencia venezolana en los años 80," Research Department Publications 4011, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    20. K K Tang, 1998. "Property Markets and Policies in an Intertemporal General Equilibrium Model," Departmental Working Papers 1999-01, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, revised Jan 1999.
    21. Assaf Razin, 1987. "Fiscal Policies and the Stock Market: International Dimensions," NBER Working Papers 2389, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.