Uncertain Future: Commercial Banks and the Third World (U.S.-Third World Policy Perspectives, No. 2)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878559892 ISBN 13: 9780878559893

Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 1984

The future of international commercial lending to the Third World has become highly uncertain just when the stakes seem greatest for the banks themselves, the developing countries, and the international financial system. Having become the main channel for the transfer of capital from the North to the South in the 1970s, how will the banks respond in the period ahead, when financing will be urgently needed? The debt crisis that burst onto the world stage in 1982 is a long-term problem. New bank lending to many developing countries has slowed to a trickle. The combination of high interest rates and the retrenchment in bank lending is draining many developing countries of badly needed development finance. While major outright defaults now seem improbable, heightened conflict between creditors and debtors is possible unless bold actions are taken soon. New approaches must take into account the interests of both the banks and developing-country borrowers. No single solution can by itself resolve the crisis. A battery of measures is needed - reforms in macro-economic management, in the policies of the multilateral financial institutions, in bank lending practices as well as information gathering and analysis, and in regulation. The urgent task is to create a more certain and stable environment for international capital flows - to restore the creditworthiness of the major debtor nations and to strengthen the confidence of depositors and investors in international capital markets. Individual chapters in this volume discuss the strategic thinking of the banks; the changing relationship between the commercial banks and the IMF and World Bank; the role official institutions might play in increasing bank lending; how the banks might better gather and process information on creditworthiness; reform needs relating to bank supervision and regulation; bank lending in local currency markets; and the politics and diplomacy of international commercial lending.

About the Author:

Richard E. Feinberg is the vice president of the Overseas Development Council. From 1977 to 1979, Feinberg was the Latin American specialist on the policy planning staff of the U.S. Department of State. He has also served as an international economist in the U.S. Treasury Department and with the House Banking committee. He is also the adjunct professor of international finance at Georgetown University School of Foreign