Reprieve and Mercy: Debt Relief for the Developing World during Coronavirus

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Reprieve and Mercy: Debt Relief for the Developing World during Coronavirus

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight key issues pertaining to debt relief and moratoria under the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), including the importance of debt relief under public resource constraints in the developing world, the difficult trade-offs of capital markets access and accruing interest payments, the need for prolonging moratoria, and the disinterest of private creditors in the rehabilitation of third world economies. The findings suggest that, while international cooperation on debt relief is necessary during the pandemic, the distorted motives of private power make the rescue of the developing world a more difficult proposition.

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Usman-Chohan-WP-Rep-Mercy-Debt-26-Jan-2021-HM-SSA-WEBDownload
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Tags: COVID, Economic Affairs & National Development
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Dr Usman W. Chohan

Dr. Usman W. Chohan is an international economist and academic who was one of the founding Directors of CASS, now serving as Advisor to President CASS on Economic Affairs & National Development. He is among the Top 100 Authors across all subjects & disciplines (out of 1.2 million authors) on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), which is the largest open repository of knowledge in the world. At CASS, he has authored six books in the past five years: (1) Public Value & Budgeting: International Perspectives, (2) Reimagining Public Managers: Delivering Public Value, (3) Public Value and the Digital Economy, (4) Pandemics and Public Value Management, (5) Activist Retail Investors and the Future of Financial Markets (co-edited), and (6) Public Value and the Post-Pandemic Society, all published with Routledge. In the academic realm, his research has been cited widely, and Dr. Chohan has testified before various authorities based on his technical expertise. Dr. Chohan has a PhD in economics from UNSW Australia, where his doctoral work led to the world’s first multidisciplinary synthesis of independent legislative fiscal institutions, and an MBA from McGill University (Canada), with coursework at MIT-Tsinghua. His previous practitioner experience includes working at the National Bank of Canada and the World Bank. He is also the President of the International Association of Hyperpolyglots (HYPIA), the leading organization worldwide for hyperpolyglotism and whose membership consists of the speakers of six or more languages. He appears frequently on domestic and international television, podcasts, and lecture series in various languages. He is also trained in South Asian musicology and plays the sitar. In addition, Dr. Chohan has maintained an annual reading challenge of 100 books every year since 2011. Dr. Chohan’s forthcoming seventh and eighth books are titled Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Multidisciplinary Perspectives (edited), and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Innovation and Vulnerability in the Digital Economy (co-edited).