TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rodrik,Dani
TI  - The Welfare Economics of Debt Service
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2655
PY  - 1988
Y2  - July 1988
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2655
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2655.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Dani Rodrik
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-9454
Fax: 617/496-5747
E-Mail: dani_rodrik@harvard.edu
AB  - This paper analyzes some of the implications of the dual transfer a debtor nation must undertake to service foreign debt: (a) an internal transfer from the private sector to the public sector; and (b) an external transfer from the domestic economy to foreign creditors. It shows that, under likely circumstances, a real depreciation of the home currency may complicate the internal transfer. As long as non-traded goods are a net source of revenue for the government, the depreciation called for by debt service deteriorates the public sector's terms of trade vis-a-vis the private sector and magnifies the requisite fiscal retrenchment. The paper discusses the role of trade policy (tariffs and export subsidies) in substituting for devaluation. Generating a private-sector surplus via interest-rate policy is shown to have similar costs on the government budget when the public sector has outstanding domestic debt.
ER  -