Foreign Aid and Development


Book Description

Aid has worked in the past but can be made to work better in the future. This book offers important new research and will appeal to those working in economics, politics and development studies as well as to governmental and aid professionals.




Open Doors


Book Description

A Brookings Institution Press, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund publication The extensive reforms and liberalization of financial services in emerging markets worldwide call for cutting-edge strategies to capture the benefits of new investment opportunities. In Open Doors, a volume of papers from the third annual Financial Markets and Development conference, multidisciplinary financial sector experts analyze current economic and political trends and prescribe practical advice to the financial development community. The book addresses the key issues of concern regarding the emerging markets, including the trends, motivations, and scope of FDI in finance; policy options that will best capture the opportunities of foreign entry; and the role of foreign institutions in e-finance innovation. The authors focus on specific topics such as foreign participation in emerging market banking systems and securities industries, WTO policies and enforcement, the role of foreign banks, liberalization of insurance markets, the need for capital markets, and the policy, regulatory, and legal issues associated with e-finance. For policymakers and financial practitioners affected by the WTO's Financial Services Agreement, this timely book should be of particular interest. Contributors include Donald Mathieson (International Money Fund), Pierre Sauvé (Trade Directorate, OECD), George J. Vojta (formerly with Bankers Trust and Citibank), Harold D. Skipper (J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University), Benn Steil (Council on Foreign Relations), Morris Goldstein and Edward M. Graham (Institute for International Economics), Nicolas Lardy (Brookings Institution), Phillip Turner (Bank of International Settlements), and Robert Ledig (Fried, Frank, Shriver & Jacobson).




Contemporary Issues in Development Finance


Book Description

Contemporary Issues in Development Finance provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of theoretical and policy issues in development finance from both the domestic and the external finance perspectives and emphasizes addressing the gaps in financial markets. The chapters cover topical issues such as microfinance, private sector financing, aid, FDI, remittances, sovereign wealth, trade finance, and the sectoral financing of agricultural and infrastructural projects. Readers will acquire both breadth and depth of knowledge in critical and contemporary issues in development finance from a philosophical and yet pragmatic development impact approach. The text ensures this by carefully integrating the relevant theoretical underpinnings, empirical assessments, and practical policy issues into its analysis. The work is designed to be fully accessible to practitioners with only a limited theoretical economic background, allowing them to deeply engage with the book as useful reference material. Readers may find more advanced information and technical details provided in clear, concise boxes throughout the text. Finally, each chapter is fully supported by a set of review questions and by cases and examples from developing countries, particularly those in Africa. This book is a valuable resource for both development finance researchers and students taking courses in development finance, development economics, international finance, financial development policy, and economic policy management. Practitioners will find the development impact, policy, and conceptual analysis dimensions insightful analysing and designing intervention strategies.




The Political Economy of Conditional and Unconditional Foreign Assistance


Book Description

Improving the effectiveness of financial assistance programs is a priority of international financial institutions (IFIs). This paper examines the effectiveness of alternative assistance instruments in a dynamic political economy framework. Economic policies of the receiving country are distorted by the influence of a domestic interest group. The assistance-providing IFI aims at reducing these distortions. The IFI provides assistance either as grants or loans, and either conditionally on reducing policy distortions or unconditionally. The paper shows that, other things constant, one-time grants are more effective than loan rollovers when assistance is unconditional, but that the opposite is true when assistance is conditional.







The Financial Issues of the New International Economic Order


Book Description

The Financial Issues of the New International Economic Order discusses the establishment of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) in the monetary-financial area. Comprised of nine chapters, the book covers financial issues, such as monetary system, external debt, private bank, financing and capital markets, and petrodollars and collective reliance. Chapter 1 tackles the transfer of financial resource, while Chapter 2 discusses external disequilibrium in developing countries and the adjustment process. Chapter 3 deals with liquidity and international finance, and Chapter 4 covers the special drawing rights and development assistance. The fifth chapter discusses the trends of public external debt of developing countries, and the sixth chapter tackles the renegotiation of Third World debt and appropriate adjustments in international trade. Chapter 7 deals with financial aid and private banking institutions, while Chapter 8 covers the changing patterns in international liquidity and Eurocurrency multipliers. The last chapter discusses the use of OPEC funds for promoting collective self-reliance among developing countries. This book will be of great use to individuals who are interested in the financial issues faced by the NIEO.







Mobilizing Domestic Capital Markets for Infrastructure Financing


Book Description

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 377. China faces the challenge of upgrading and expanding its infrastructure facilities to keep pace with the country�s unparalleled growth rate so that economic development will not be jeopardized by infrastructure-related constraints. Increasingly, governments in emerging market economies such as China are looking to domestic markets to help fund these massive infrastructure requirements while developing appropriate investment strategies to maintain long-term external capital flows to targeted infrastructure sectors. This paper draws on the experiences of industrial and developing countries with capital market financing of domestic infrastructure projects and discusses the applicability of such experience to China. It outlines the enabling conditions and institutions critical to the growth of local capital markets and their role as providers of infrastructure finance. The paper also describes other mechanisms, including guarantees and development funds, that can be used to mitigate risks for investors and analyzes China�s capital markets and current state of infrastructure finance.