Determinants of developing country debt: the revolving door of debt rescheduling through the Paris Club and export credits

Abstract

Programmes designed to alleviate developing country debt have been implemented by bilateral, commercial and multilateral creditors and sovereign debt has been restructured under Paris Club negotiations. These strategies have not been very successful at reducing the debt levels of developing countries, in part because they continue to receive export credit insurance facilities through export credit agencies (ecas). The purpose of this paper is to examine the high percentages of developing country debt owed to governmental ecas. Analysis of the external debt of low-income and lower middle-income economies at five year intervals from 1980 to 2010 finds a substantial part of the indebtedness of these economies is held by ecas. Analysis of specific sub-Saharan African countries undergoing debt rescheduling and forgiveness through Paris Club negotiations was done for Ghana and Kenya. These results show that, following debt restructuring, new export credit guarantees and/or loans were forthcoming to these countries from the ecas of the creditor countries that rescheduled their old debt in Paris Club negotiations during 2000–12.