Working Papers

The pandemic-induced global economic crisis has contributed to the re-emergence of sovereign default risk, especially for emerging and developing economies, and has directed attention to the impact of the institutions that are tasked with attempting to predict defaults: the international credit rating agencies. This paper describes four main challenges posed by credit rating agencies, especially from a developing and emerging economies perspective: potential bias in ratings, pro-cyclicality of ratings, governance issues and conflicts of interest, and incorporation of climate risk. It concludes with potential policy solutions addressed at ratings agencies, regulators, and policy makers.…

In Article 25 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations recognized in 1948 the basic human right to “security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond ... control.” This paper examines how economic insecurity is related to, yet different from, poverty and inequality, why it matters for human well-being and how it has been changing in different countries around the world in recent years. The paper concludes with discussion of how economic insecurity has been and will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic/recession.

From around 2000 onward, donors and recipient governments embarked upon a new aid paradigm. The most important elements include increased selectivity in the aid allocation, more ownership of recipient countries based on nationally elaborated PRSPs, and more donor alignment and harmonization via program-based approaches such as budget support. The paper assesses the theoretical merits of this new paradigm, identifying some contradictions and limitations, and then examines its implementation over the past decade and its results. The empirical results largely confirm the earlier identified weaknesses and limitations. The paper concludes with some suggestions for improving aid practices.

This paper recalls the history of proposed “innovative” mechanisms by which governments could strengthen financial cooperation for development. Such proposals sought more predictable and assured financial flows to facilitate recipient country programming, while also substantially adding to the volume of highly concessional international support for development. International discussions of these proposals mostly began in the 1960s and in many cases continue today, although implementation thus far has been modest. These discussions are contrasted with generally more recent proposals that proponents call “innovative” but that do not share the characteristics of the more radical thinking…