Debt Overhang, Liquidity Constraints and Adjustment Incentives
Investment in most heavily indebted countries has been weak since 1982. The widely accepted debt overhang proposition interprets the investment drop as a moral hazard problem: a heavy debt burden raises the incentive to consume, because the marginal benefit of investment would go to the creditor. This paper develops several hypotheses on optimal reactions of a credit-constrained debtor country on an increase in debt, on variations in the credit constraint, on changes in interest rates, and contrasts these with the predictions stemming from the debt overhang proposition. Empirical specifications of conventional investment functions and consumption functions (along the Permanent Income Hypothesis) lead to reject the debt overhang proposition, but find that the switch from positive to negative external transfers to the debtor countries is an important explanation for their investment drop. The major policy conclusion is that the 1989 shift in international debt management (the Brady ... Dans la plupart des pays lourdement endettés, l'investissement, depuis 1982, s'est caractérisé par une grande faiblesse. Selon la thèse généralement admise de la "dette trop élevée", la chute de l'investissement relève d'une problématique d'ordre psychologique : le fardeau de la dette stimule la consommation, parce que le bénéfice marginal de tout investissement semble devoir échapper aux bailleurs de fonds. Cet ouvrage présente plusieurs hypothèses relatives aux réactions les mieux adaptées, de la part des pays débiteurs victimes de limitations de crédits, dans les cas d'une augmentation de la dette, de modifications des limitations de crédit, d'une variation des taux d'intérêt. Cette étude compare également ces hypothèses aux prévisions découlant de la thèse de la "dette trop élevée". Les caractéristiques empiriques des fonctions conventionnelles d'investissements et de consommation (selon l'hypothèse du revenu permanent – Permanent Income Hypothesis) invalident la thèse ...
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| Date of creation: | 01 Oct 1990 |
| Handle: | RePEc:oec:devaaa:32-en |
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