International Policy Coordination: The Case of the Developing Country Debt Crisis

This paper reviews the management of the debt crisis to date, and considers several possible alternative approaches for international cooperation in the future. The first part of the paper briefly reviews the scope of the crisis, and some of the reasons for its onset. Then, the paper describe the internationally coordinated policy responses to the crisis, as well as the conceptual underpinnings of this coordinated response. In the latter part of the paper, some of the reasons for the incomplete success of the policy response are described, and several alternative measures for the future are discussed. The discussion emphasizes the possible merits of debt forgiveness in addition to debt reschedulings as an instrument for the future management of the debt crisis.