Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance, Volume 1: The International Financial System

by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Overview

For dozens of developing countries, the financial upheavals of the 1980s have set back economic development by a decade or more. Poverty in those countries has intensified as they struggle under the burden of an enormous external debt. In 1988, more than six years after the onset of the crisis, almost all the debtor countries were still unable to borrow in the international capital markets on normal terms. Moreover, the world financial system has been disrupted by the prospect of widespread defaults on those debts. Because of the urgency of the present crisis, and because similar crises have recurred intermittently for at least 175 years, it is important to understand the fundamental features of the international macroeconomy and global financial markets that have contributed to this repeated instability.

This project on developing country debt, undertaken by the National Bureau of Economic Research, provides a detailed analysis of the ongoing developing country debt crisis. The project focuses on the middle-income developing countries, particularly those in Latin America and East Asia, although many lessons of the study should apply as well to other, poorer debtor countries. The project analyzes the crisis from two perspectives, that of the international financial system as a whole (volume 1) and that of individual debtor countries (volumes 2 and 3).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226733326
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	07/02/1991
Series:	National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report
Edition description:	1
Pages:	409
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics at Harvard University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the coauthor, with Michael Bruno, of Economics of Worldwide Stagflation.

Table of Contents

Preface
1. Introduction
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Part I. History of Debt Crisis
2. How Sovereign Debt Has Worked
Peter H. Lindert and Peter J. Morton
3. The U.S. Capital Market and Foreign Lending, 1920-1955
Barry Eichengreen
Part II. Adjustment Problems in Debtor Countries
4. Structural Adjustment Policies in Highly Indebted Countries
Sebastian Edwards
5. The Politics of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment
Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman
6. Conditionality, Debt Relief, and the Developing Country Debt Crisis
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Part III. The International System
7. Private Capital Flows to Problem Debtors
Paul Krugman
8. Debt Problems and the World Macroeconomy
Rudiger Dornbusch
9. Resolving the International Debt Crisis
Stanley Fischer
List of Contributors
Name Index
Subject Index

Editorial Reviews

First of a four volume set which is the result of an NBER project. Specific topics include the history of international lending and its implications for reform of the current system; alternative approaches for the design of stabilization programs; and debtor countries' problems in adjusting to the debt crisis. The final three papers examine developed countries and their financial institutions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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