Crescita e vincolo esterno: quali strategie per promuovere stabilità macroeconomica, competitività e investimenti

A high share of foreign currency denomination of domestic public debt in rules out any recourse to inflation tax as an effective adjustment device. Anti- inflation policies based upon hard peg regimes may remove the exchange rate risk in the short run but - as pointed out by Argentina’s currency board crisis at the beginning of the current decade - cannot avoid the default risk, mirrored in the spread between yields on domestic bonds and benchmark bonds such as US Treasury Bills. Alternatively, for any degree of fiscal discipline, adjustable peg or freely floating exchange rate regimes may be successful only if the passthrough from a depreciating exchange to domestic prices and wages is kept under control. Temporary and well targeted controls on short-term external capital movements, such as those successfully managed by Chile and Malaysia, may help to overcome the most acute phase of crisis adjustment. Debt- for-equity swaps and their variants such as debt- for-development or debt- for-nature swaps, involving both public and private lenders, may give an effective although quite limited support to adjustment policies in over- indebted developing countries. strategies and oligopolistic rivalry.