News that Fred Bergsten, founding director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, will step down at the end 2012, after 30 years of service, will unleash many accolades related to his accomplishments in creating what is widely regarded as the leading think tank in the field of international economics.
This is a joint post with Wren Elhai.
What everyone was expecting is now official. On July 9th, South Sudan will become the world’s newest country. But while the date is certain, there are still plenty of details to be worked out. There is no deal as of yet on sharing Sudan’s oil wealth, or on its nearly $40 billion in external debt. Successful resolution of the debt issue acceptable to both north and south and the international community is crucial to the success of the new nation and to avoiding a resumption of the long and bloody civil war.
This is a joint post with Cindy Prieto.
As the Cote d’Ivoire standoff moves into Day Ten, pressure is mounting on Laurent Gbagbo who lost the election to Alassane Ouattara but refuses to stand down. The African Union and ECOWAS have suspended the country, and the United States and Europe have each threatened Gbagbo with financial sanctions, asset freezes, and travel bans unless he relents.
As cash becomes scarce and the junta more desperate, Gbagbo and his inner circle might try to quickly borrow money or start a fire sale. This would not only provide fuel for potential conflict, but also saddle the Ouattara government with new debts once they get in the seat. One additional way of squeezing Gbagbo and avoiding this outcome is contract sanctions, as proposed in the recent report of CGD’s Prevention of Odious Debt Working Group led by John Williamson, Michael Kremer, and Seema Jayachandran.
When I was writing about third world debt a decade ago, I watched Jubilee 2000 and other debt cancellation campaigners pound their way to victory with simplistic claims about the importance of debt cancellation, such as that principal and interest payments were diverting enough government revenue from poor countries' health budgets to kill 19,000 children per day. I wondered: are they naive or am I?
In 2002, John Williamson and I proposed that the gold at the IMF be used to deal with global public good (bad) of unsustainable debt of poor countries – and in particular to allow the IMF to finance suspension of debt service to the IMF and the multilateral development banks following an external shock.
In a huge step forward, this week Liberia slashed its foreign debt by buying back $1.2 billion in commercial debt -- about one-quarter of its foreign debt -- from its private foreign creditors, including banks, hedge funds, and other “distressed debt” investment funds.
Remember the Washington Consensus? I attended a Davos lunch on its meaning and its fate. (My table was expertly hosted by Kristin Forbes of CGD's advisory committee.
Here's a quick recap:
Is the Washington Consensus alive and well?
Arnold "Al" Harberger came to Washington and to CGD on Friday. For those readers who don't know, Al is, among other things, known as the father of the "Chicago Boys" -- young economists from Chile and elsewhere in Latin America who trained at the University of Chicago in the 1970s and returned to lead the reform of their countries' economies.
There is an old French maxim that says, if you can't fire a worker, don't hire him. Asia seems to be learning French. The widespread "push-back" against earlier abuses of labor rights by non-democratic regimes is producing a host of well-intentioned labor market interventions throughout Asia that risk undermining the region’s greatest asset: it’s abundant and affordable labor. In Indonesia, for example, minimum wages have risen three-fold since 1998 and a number of local governments are actively competing to see who can have the highest minimum wage.