Debt Sustainability and direction of trade: What does Africa’s shifting engagement with BRIC and OECD tells us?

Megersa, kelbesa and Cassimon, Danny (2016): Debt Sustainability and direction of trade: What does Africa’s shifting engagement with BRIC and OECD tells us?

Abstract

This study assesses the evolution of debt sustainability in the Sub Saharan African (SSA) region. It also examines the respective contributions of OECD and BRIC to debt sustainability in the region. We reveal how the external demand for SSA goods and services from OECD and BRIC helps to lower ‘debt-to-exports’ and ‘debt-service-to-exports’ ratios, two of the main gauges of debt sustainability. Furthermore, using simple growth accounting, we assess how the net exports by SSA to the OECD and BRIC contributes to the region’s GDP growth, and thus indirectly helps to lower the ‘debt-to-GDP’ ratio, which is another important measure of indebtedness. Our study also compares the ‘actual’ debt levels of SSA with ‘hypothetical’ debt levels that simulate the contributions of OECD and BRIC. On the basis of debt sustainability thresholds of the joint IMF-World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF), we test how the sustainability of SSA debt has evolved overtime and how much the OECD and BRIC contribute to three classes of ‘weak’, ‘medium’ and ‘strong’ debt sustainability targets.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: debt sustainability, threshold effects, international trade, Growth Accounting
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E0 - General > E01 - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth ; Environmental Accounts; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook > E62 - Fiscal Policy; F - International Economics > F3 - International Finance > F34 - International Lending and Debt Problems; H - Public Economics > H6 - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt > H63 - Debt ; Debt Management ; Sovereign Debt; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N17 - Africa ; Oceania; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O11 - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development; P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P33 - International Trade, Finance, Investment, Relations, and Aid

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