On Edge: International Banking and Country Risk

(Hardback)

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Description

This book carefully examines the motives, objectives and strategies of the major players in the global lending game: creditor governments, bank regulatory agencies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). After outlining the interests of the debtor governments, the authors discuss the behavior of the international banks and the IMF. They offer an incisive analysis of the creditors' strategies for coping with the situation and conclude with suggested alternative solutions for resolving the crisis and for ensuring that the future will not bring more threatening debt problems.

Reviews

Goldberg and Haendel trace the historical development of the developing countries' debt crisis and the consequences to both the debtor countries and their creditors. They take a balanced, nonsensational approach to their subject, quoting hundreds of bankers, economists, government officials, and other commentators.... The solutions discussed are the traditional ones. At bottom, of course, is the need for debtor nations to increase their rate of economic growth in order to improve their ability to earn foreign exchange by increasing exports without increasing imports commensurately. But economic growth requires investment in both physical and human capital, and this takes time. Creditors must be patient, willing to make financial concessions. Lenders are in the difficult position of continuing loans to developing countries at the same time that their risk exposure is already so great. For their part, the debtor nations must carefully husband the resources they do have. Most of the countries have embarked on imposed or voluntary austerity programs, but this presents the increased potential for severe political problems and even revolutions. Readers can gain important insights from a careful reading of this short, but information filled book. Academic and general audiences.-Choice
"Goldberg and Haendel trace the historical development of the developing countries' debt crisis and the consequences to both the debtor countries and their creditors. They take a balanced, nonsensational approach to their subject, quoting hundreds of bankers, economists, government officials, and other commentators.... The solutions discussed are the traditional ones. At bottom, of course, is the need for debtor nations to increase their rate of economic growth in order to improve their ability to earn foreign exchange by increasing exports without increasing imports commensurately. But economic growth requires investment in both physical and human capital, and this takes time. Creditors must be patient, willing to make financial concessions. Lenders are in the difficult position of continuing loans to developing countries at the same time that their risk exposure is already so great. For their part, the debtor nations must carefully husband the resources they do have. Most of the countries have embarked on imposed or voluntary austerity programs, but this presents the increased potential for severe political problems and even revolutions. Readers can gain important insights from a careful reading of this short, but information filled book. Academic and general audiences."-Choice

Author Bio

ELLEN S. GOLDBERG is an Assistant Director for Corporate Planning at the Federal National Mortgage Association. DAN HAENDEL is an attorney and a Fellow at the National Center for Export-Import Studies at Georgetown University.