Journal of Comparative Economics - with Marine De Talancé (LeDA, DIAL) and Miguel Nino-Zarazua (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract

Soaring levels of public debt in low-income countries are fuelling concerns about their ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals such as free access to primary education. In the late 1990s and 2000s, international financial institutions introduced a series of debt relief initiatives aimed to restore debt sustainability among highly indebted countries. This study examines the impact of these initiatives on primary school attendance. We exploit the temporal variation in the implementation of these policies, in combination with individual-level data from 177 Demographic and Health Surveys covering more than 1.5 million school age children from 44 low-income countries to implement difference-in-differences and spatial difference-in-discontinuity estimators. Results suggest that debt relief initiatives, by freeing up additional public resources, have significantly contributed to increasing primary school attendance among heavily indebted countries. Impact heterogeneity analysis also shows that debt relief has been effective at reducing wealth-based, intergenerational, religious, ethnic and spatial inequalities in education. Our results provide robust evidence to assert that debt relief, in combination with other financing sources, can contribute to improving educational outcomes in highly indebted poor countries.

International Review of Law and Economics, vol. 66, pp. 105978 (2021) - with Marc Raffinot (LeDA, DIAL) and Baptiste Venet (LeDA, DIAL)

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has recently rekindled discussions about debt relief, leading official lenders to grant a moratorium on low-income countries' external public debt service. Private creditors, which had massively invested in LICs (especially in Africa), have been so far relatively spared. But would they keep lending to these countries if a new wave of debt write-offs were to occur? Building on the two largest debt relief programs for LICs, namely the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), we investigate whether debt relief leads international private creditors to withdraw or to resume lending to beneficiary governments. Using a difference-in-differences approach, our results suggest that debt relief has fostered borrowing from private creditors, and identify the absence of reputational effects and the short-term horizon of private creditors as the key drivers that made renewed access to the credit market possible.

Revue d’Économie Financière, vol. 141, pp. 225-239 (2021)

Abstract

Le moratoire d’avril 2020 sur le service de la dette des États pauvre a entraîné une certaine résurgence des débats autour des initiatives d’annulations de dette des pays pauvres. Cependant, et en dépit d’une multiplication d’études sur le sujet, leurs effets sur le développement des pays bénéficiaires restent encore relativement flous par faute d’exposition, mais aussi et surtout par manque de consensus. Cet article vise à décrire le fonctionnement de ces initiatives, leurs objectifs et à dresser un bilan de leurs impacts, vingt ans après leur application. Si les effets sur la croissance restent pour l’heure mitigés, la littérature a mis en lumière un certain nombre d’effets positifs de ces programmes d’allégement de dette sur les finances publiques des États récipiendaires et sur certains indicateurs de développement humain. Le tableau est donc plutôt encourageant, mais dissimule quelques imperfections qu’il sera nécessaire de corriger, en cas de nouvelles annulations de dette.

Public Choice, vol. 187(3), pp. 455-480 (2021) - with Lisa Chauvet (Paris 1, CES) 

 Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between taxation and firm performance in developing countries. Combining firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES) and tax data from the Government Revenue Dataset (UNU-WIDER), our results suggest that taxation benefits firm growth in developing countries, especially in lower-income countries. This positive contribution of domestic revenue to firm performance seems to channel through the financing of the public infrastructure vital to firms operating in these countries. We also provide evidence that this positive effect disappears when corruption is too pervasive, and when the source of tax revenue reduces government accountability.

Journal of African Economies, vol. 28(3), pp. 252-276 (2019)

Abstract

This paper conducts a difference-in-differences analysis to empirically assess the effect of multilateral debt relief on recipient government's tax effort. Although the results suggest that debt cancellation gives rise to greater tax efforts, they also show that most of these efforts are made beforehand in order to get debt relief and that beneficiary countries subsequently ease off on their effort once they got full debt relief. However, further tests find that such moral hazard is not observed for all HIPCs and depends upon particular features of recipient governments such as preference for present and access to new financing sources.

Review of World Economics, vol. 155, pp. 71-104 (2019) - with Lisa Chauvet (Paris 1, CES), Sylviane Guillaumont Jeannenet (FERDI), Patrick Guillaumont (FERDI), Jules Sampawende-Tapsoba (IMF), Laurent Wagner (FERDI)

Journal of Development Studies, vol. 55 (9), pp. 1867-1891 (2019) - with Marc Raffinot (LeDA, DIAL)

Abstract

As the multilateral debt relief initiatives draw to a close, this article reviews the impacts of debt relief to low-income countries (LICs) building on both the theoretical and empirical literature of past decades. We show that, while the pioneering studies of the early 2000s are inconclusive, the most recent analyses overcome certain methodological impediments to highlight significant multilateral debt relief initiative effects. These analyses hence suggest that these large-scale programmes may well have met expectations, at least in part.

International Economics, vol. 144, pp. 29-52 (2015) - with Danny Cassimon (IOB), Marc Raffinot (LeDA, DIAL), Bjorn Van Campenhout (IFPRI)

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.

Economie - 2ème année GEA, IUT de Champs sur Marne (site de Meaux)

Economie - 1ère année GEA, IUT de Champs sur Marne (site de Meaux)