Book Description

Explains the broad range of financial instruments government policymakers can use to avoid commodity price risks caused by fluctuating prices. This hands-on book describes management techniques countries can use to avoid the financial risk that occurs when commodity prices fluctuate dramatically. It illustrates each technique in detail with practical case studies of Colombia, Costa Rica, Hungary, Papua New Guinea, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Venezuela. These financial techniques include short-term instruments and newer methods that let governments evade price risks over longer periods and raise finances that are linked to commodity prices. The new techniques include commodity loans, bonds, swaps, futures, forwards, and options. Policymakers receive clear information about how these financial instruments can manage price risk, provide access to external finance, and lower a country's credit risk. The workbook shows how risk instruments work within traditional stabilization schemes and explains which of the techniques protect against external risk. It also identifies the institutional changes and education requirements governments must meet to use the instruments effectively. This book advances the more theoretical work on the new, longer-term instruments that appears in Commodity Risk Management and Finance, published by the World Bank and Oxford University Press. Published for the World Bank by The Johns Hopkins University Press.