Publication
Title
Africa : out of debt, into fiscal space? Dynamic fiscal impact of the debt relief initiatives on African Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs)
Author
Abstract
After two debt relief initiatives launched in 1996 (the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, HIPC) and in 1999 (The enhanced HIPC initiative), the G7 decided to go further by cancelling (most of) the remaining multilateral debt for these HIPC countries through the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI, 2005). Building on earlier literature that tries to assess the fiscal response effects of HIPC debt relief, we extend this assessment by explicitly including the fiscal response effects of MDRI debt relief, and by using an extended dataset and alternative econometric techniques, in order to have sufficient hindsight and better tackle methodological issues such as country-specific effects. We confirm earlier findings that debt relief, and especially the enhanced HIPC initiative, has had a positive impact on recipient country total domestic revenue and public investment (as percentage of GDP). Additionally, thanks to our large observation span, we also observe that the MDRI led to a significant increase in current primary expenditures and domestic revenue ratios, although these effects are on average smaller than the HIPC Initiative ones.
Language
English
Source (journal)
International economics. - Paris, 2010, currens
Publication
Paris : 2015
ISSN
2110-7017 [print]
2542-6869 [online]
DOI
10.1016/J.INTECO.2015.04.007
Volume/pages
144 (2015) , p. 29-52
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
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Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
VABB-SHW
Record
Identifier
Creation 23.09.2015
Last edited 04.03.2024
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