| Tax-Deductible Loan Loss Reserves and International Banking |
| An Economist's Unbiased Analysis |
| This paper discusses tax deductibility of loan loss reserves, focussing on costs to the budget, hence taxpayers. Economically, reserves bring book values in line with real, impaired values of claims. (...) |
 |
| The Final Demise of Unfair Debtor Discrimination? |
| Comments on Ms Krueger's Speeches |
| Krueger?s proposal to "mimick" domestic insolvency laws marked the abrupt end of the IMF?s fierce opposition against sovereign insolvency. It was a full U-turn regarding the Fund?s views on sovereign (...) |
|
| Making the WTO More Development-Friendly ? Some Proposals in Favour of Developing Member Countries |
| Identifying large deficits of the WTO with regard to developmental needs, this paper proposes changes to the better. First, still existing negative discrimination of developing countries has to be (...) |
|
| International Financial Institutions and Accountability |
| The Need for Drastic Change |
| International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are a singular and alien element within market economies. Their decisions are totally delinked from financial accountability. Strongly determining their (...) |
|
| Social Expenditure, Pension Systems, and Neoliberalism |
| While decreasing the role of the State as such is part and parcel of neoliberal ideology, another aspect does not seem to have received appropriate attention. The welfare state has created high (...) |
|
| Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth |
| Analysing Donors' Aid Statistics |
| Claiming that its definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) has remained unchanged, the OECD concedes changes in interpretation ?broadening? the concept's scope. Breaks in continuity, (...) |
|
| Reforming the Bretton Woods Institutions |
| There is an urgent need of fundamental reforms of IBRD and IMF. However, before any meaningful reform can be envisaged it is necessary to enforce respect of statutory obligations by these (...) |
|
| The Present State of the Discussion on Restructuring Sovereign Debts: Which Specific Sovereign Insolvency Procedure? |
| The paper discusses the four proposals presently on the table: Collective Action Clauses, a voluntary Code of Good Conduct for debt re-negotiation, and two models of sovereign insolvency: the IMF?s (...) |
|
| Measuring the Real Debt Burden: Proposing a New Debt Indicator |
| In order to assess the problem of a debt overhang more appropriately, a new debt indicator is proposed that solves the ambiguity of traditional debt indicators. Debt service Ratios and Interest (...) |
|
| Debt Management: Issues, Options and Challenge for Developing Countries |
This paper draws attention to some important problems and shortcomings in international debt
management, focusing on some issues that are extremely important to debtor countries. These
...) |
|
| New Resources for an Unreformed IMF? |
| The present US Crisis once again saved the IMF after a wave of early repayments had pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy, also making it more powerful. Unsurprisingly, reform proposals abound, (...) |
|
| The Bretton Woods Institutions and the Rule of Law: An Urgent Good Governance Issue |
At present proposals to reform the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) abound, and good
governance and the Rule of Law have been widely preached. It is all the more surprising that one urgent (...) |
|
| A Food Import Compensation Mechanism: A Modest Proposal to Reduce Food Price Effects on Poor Countries |
Much higher food prices are putting the health and lives of the world?s poorest at severe risk.
This paper proposes a mechanism to compensate for the effects of higher import prices on the (...) |
|
| An EMF with a Sovereign Insolvency Mechanism |
| Greece?s catastrophe has revived the idea of sovereign insolvency. Probably due to the no-bailout rule, even quarters highly inimical to it before could suddenly imagine this solution. Technically, (...) |
|
| Preferred or Not Preferred: Thoughts on Priority Structures of Creditors |
| Adapting domestic insolvency procedures to sovereign states one must tackle the question whether some form of creditor differentiation, such as creditor classes, should exist internationally. (...) |
