TY - JOUR AU - Buiter,Willem H. TI - Macroeconomic Responses by Developing Countries to Changes in External Economic Conditions JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 1836 PY - 1986 Y2 - February 1986 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1836 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1836.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Willem H. Buiter Citigroup Centre Canada Square, Canary Wharf London E14 5LB UNITED KINGDOM E-Mail: willembuiter@btinternet.com AB - The paper presents a non-technical survey of some of the issues involved in the design of stabilization policy 10 developng countries with special emphasis on policy responses to external shocks. First, the six imost imortant external economic parameters of developing countries are reviewed; I) the terms of trade, 2) the growth of world markets, 3) the cost and availability of private external finance, 4) the cost and availability of official and other concessional finance, including aid, 5) the world rate of inflation and 6) the exchange rates between the currencies of the major industrial countries. The paper then reviews the macroeconomic policy arsenal and the demand and supply effects of the various policy instruments (monetarv and credit poiicy, the entire array ot fiscal instruments, exchange rate policy, the use of exchange and capital controls and incomes policy). Finally, there is a discussion of stabilization responses to four esternal shocks: a deterioration in the terms of trade, a slowdown in the rate of qrowth of export demand, an increase in the interest rate at which developing countries borrow abroad and an increase in the external rate of inflation. The prevalence of repressed financial markets and credit rationing makes effective demand and effectitie supply responses to monetery fiscal and exchange rate policy quite difterent from what they are in most of the industrial world. ER -