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The Paris Club of official bilateral creditors is promoting the view that holders of sovereign bonds should take their share of the burdens when borrowers need rescuing from default. Jerome Booth argues that this burden-sharing dogma flies in the face of insights that can be gleaned from history and conflates what is essentially politically-motivated lending with market-driven lending. It will, he argues, inevitably damage the debtors it is ostensibly designed to help

World Bank president James Wolfensohn has spent an unprecedented amount of time and energy reaching out to civil society. The Bank's management, however, now faces a difficult, if not impossible balancing act as a result.

Brazil is the powerhouse of Latin America: by far the region's largest economy - and largest debtor - it acts as a proxy for the rest of South America. And it's in trouble. The slowing global economy is pumping less money into the country, an energy crisis has created an internal supply shock, and uncertainty over next year's elections is increasing. At the same time, Brazil's exports are too low, its population too poorly educated, and its domestic savings woefully inadequate if it is to compete on the international stage. With all of that to contend with, the last thing Brazil needed was the tango effect: contagion from neighbouring Argentina. Felix Salmon asks whether Brazil, along with the rest of South America, is falling back into crisis

For some hard-bitten corporate executives and the more cynical investors, the concept of corporate governance is doubtless too nebulous and idealistic to bother with. But for many it has acquired sufficient substance to serve as Euromoney surveyed companies contained in one or more of the following categories as of June 15 2001:

Years from now, the banking crisis of today will probably be seen as the beginning of a period when market dominance started to pass to foreign hands.

The majority of Arab banks enjoyed a good year in 2000 as most of the main Arab countries recorded solid rates of GDP growth, benefiting from the continued high price of oil. Reflecting this, the top 100 Arab banks saw net profit rise by 15% in 2000 on an aggregated basis. The overall return on equity rose to 14.1% in 2000 from 13.2% in 1999, and the return on assets increased to 1.3%.

There are few bigger jobs in finance than US Treasury undersecretary for international affairs. So meet John Taylor, the former academic economist who finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world will be courting for the next few years. Taking time out from the negotiations over Argentina he delivers some tough messages on official sector financing packages: they should come with fewer conditions, but those conditions should be strictly monitored and enforced, before funds are disbursed. He offers to share useful experience with Japan, expresses confidence in the European single currency project and explains to James H Smalhout why the US current account deficit is sustainable

Legislation is pending that should liberalize Saudi Arabia’s capital markets and attract foreign investment and returning Saudi capital. The extent of these reforms will show how far the country’s leaders intend to open up an economy that needs capital investment and job creation.

Being an investment banker in the Philippines is rarely dull. One day you might find yourself being blamed for triggering a collapse in the currency, the next winning a mandate for an unplaceable bond deal. Nerves and tempers are being frayed in the country’s financial markets by fears about collapsing exports, a weakening currency, fiscal deficits and exclusion from international capital markets. Everyone hopes that the new president can clean up the mess.

This summer the euro began to strengthen, the European Central Bank pleased markets and politicians with a long-awaited quarter-point rate cut and criticism of the policy conduct of the ECB receded. It may be time for a new assessment of how the bank has been doing. Clearly it has inherited flaws from the political compromises made to set it up. Is it in such a hopeless state that mistakes will happen again, or were past errors excusable gaffes in an otherwise reasonably successful performance?

Even after China has joined the World Trade Organization, there will be a grace period of five years before foreign banks can compete head-on with local banks. But that still represents an ambitious timetable for reform. There has been progress, but the sheer scale of China’s banking system, the need to adopt new accounting standards and the number of bad loans present hurdles.