Mécanismes de désendettement des pays en développement. Les implications de l'intervention des institutions financières internationales, en présence d'incitations à l'ajustement

This paper examines the conditions under which the debt reduction schemes lead debtor countries to increase their adjustment effort and their solvency. These conditions depend on the debtor?s situation, and notably, on the cost of the requested adjustment. Nevertheless, the optimal agreement is imposed by the debt reduction mechanism. We compare direct forgiveness and buybacks on the secondary debt market, and we show that this two modes of debt relief are equivalent if buybacks are financed by loans of IFI that are seniors. If loans of IFI are juniors, these operations are inconsistent with the situation of the debtor and lead private creditors to refuse all financing to a country with an important cost of the adjustment. Classification JEL : F34, D82