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Kushan Gupta published Catholic Financial Life Interviews Eric LeCompte About the Jubilee Year in Press 2025-07-01 10:12:28 -0400
Catholic Financial Life Interviews Eric LeCompte About the Jubilee Year
Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network, was recently interviewed by Catholic Financial Life, discussing the 2025 Jubilee Year: its origins, spiritual significance, and how forgiveness can transform real lives.
Watch here.
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Kushan Gupta published Vatican News Quotes Eric LeCompte discussing the Jubilee 2025 Commission Report in Press 2025-06-23 11:57:34 -0400
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Kushan Gupta published National Catholic Reporter Cites Eric LeCompte in Discussion of New Vatican Report Calling for Global Economic Reforms in Press 2025-06-23 11:29:39 -0400
National Catholic Reporter Cites Eric LeCompte in Discussion of New Vatican Report Calling for Global Economic Reforms
Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA, was recently quoted in an article covering the Vatican’s June 20th launch of the Jubilee Commission Report on debt and development. Read an excerpt below or the full article here.
New Vatican report calls for global economic reforms
By: Michael Sean Winters
"The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, marking the Jubilee of Hope, issued a report on debt and development in the world and the need for a sustainable, people-centered global economy June 20. The report is the work of a commission Pope Francis established in which the pontifical academy worked with Columbia University's Initiative for Policy Dialogue. Just as in 2000, the promotion of debt forgiveness for impoverished nations is a theme of this year's Jubilee.
The effort was led by renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Guzman, a former economy minister in Argentina. "Their deep thinking on this issue created all that we know needs to be done to build an economy that serves all of us," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, in an interview from Rome. LeCompte also commended the leadership of the Pontifical Academy of Social Science's president, Dominican Sr. Helen Alford, and chancellor, Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In our country, where religion tends to be privatized, people may wonder why the Catholic Church is involved in drafting and publishing a report that gets into the economic weeds. "It was Pope Francis who reminded us while the devil is in the details, our Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit are the ones who are the greater powers in the details," LeCompte told me. "It was the prayer of Jesus, the Our Father, that called for our debts to be forgiven."
The report states that "excesses of debt have afflicted so many countries, with debt and development crises occurring so often" the problem is systemic. "Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that so shortly after the previous initiatives for debt relief for low-income countries, the world is once again confronting debt and development crises."
For developing countries, when there are "global financing booms, money floods in; in busts, it flows out even more quickly." For developed, wealthy countries, the reverse is the case: "In times of crisis, capital flows toward them. In a storm, safe financial 'havens' become all the more attractive."
The report also notes that there is a "chronic underinvestment in innovation, human capital, and infrastructure." This makes developing economies especially susceptible to economic swings: The international financial "dynamics have eroded state capacity and weakened the ability of policymakers to even conceive of development strategies that could enable structural transformation and sustained economic self-determination.""
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Kushan Gupta published The Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis in Debt Sustainability Assessments and Their Role in the Global Financial Architecture 2024-08-19 09:53:24 -0400
The Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis
Jubilee USA partnered with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York to publish the Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martín Guzmán.
The paper was the fourth to launch as part of a series that gathered practitioners to write on the theme "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture." The papers will be chapters in a report to appear later in the summer.
Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martín Guzmán
Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSAs) are documents that hold serious implications for both debtors and creditors in sovereign debt negotiations. DSAs are not merely technical assessments of countries’ capacity to take on debt but are also grounded in political assumptions. A new study by Martín Guzmán and Joseph E. Stiglitz looks at the practice of the IMF’s debt sustainability analysis. They discuss how incentives and competing interests of stakeholders shape understandings of the debt sustainability constraints, endogenous effects of macroeconomics and fiscal policies, and beliefs on distribution of shocks. They identify areas for improvements in DSAs opportunity and publication timelines, dealing with the IMF’s role as a creditor, the treatment of foreign vs domestic currency debt, choosing correct discount factors, and the causes of over-optimism in baseline growth scenarios.
Find the webpage for the "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture" series here.
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Kushan Gupta published The Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis in Press 2024-08-14 11:07:59 -0400
The Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis
Jubilee USA partnered with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York to publish the Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman.
The paper was the fourth to launch as part of a series that gathered practitioners to write on the theme "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture." The papers will be chapters in a report to appear later in the summer.
Practice of Sovereign Debt Sustainability Analysis, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Martin Guzman
Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSAs) are documents that hold serious implications for both debtors and creditors in sovereign debt negotiations. DSAs are not merely technical assessments of countries’ capacity to take on debt but are also grounded in political assumptions. A new study by Martín Guzmán and Joseph E. Stiglitz looks at the practice of the IMF’s debt sustainability analysis. They discuss how incentives and competing interests of stakeholders shape understandings of the debt sustainability constraints, endogenous effects of macroeconomics and fiscal policies, and beliefs on distribution of shocks. They identify areas for improvements in DSAs opportunity and publication timelines, dealing with the IMF’s role as a creditor, the treatment of foreign vs domestic currency debt, choosing correct discount factors, and the causes of over-optimism in baseline growth scenarios.
Find the webpage for the "Debt Sustainability Assessments and their Role in the Global Financial Architecture" series here.
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Kushan Gupta published Jubilee USA Statement on IMF World Economic Outlook Report in Press 2024-04-16 09:36:23 -0400
Jubilee USA Statement on IMF World Economic Outlook Report
As world leaders arrive in Washington, DC for the Spring IMF and World Bank Meetings, the IMF releases its flagship World Economic Outlook report.
Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious development group Jubilee USA Network and a United Nations finance expert who monitored IMF meetings since 2010, releases the following statement on the IMF Meetings and World Economic Outlook Report:
“Five years after the pandemic began, the IMF forecasts weak global growth for the next five years.
"In addition to the suffering caused by wars and conflicts, it is more difficult to have accurate economic outlook predictions.
“High debt levels across developing countries and the lack of debt relief means we can't achieve a strong global economy."
Read the full World Economic Outlook Report here.
Read Jubilee USA's press release on IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva's curtain raiser speech here.
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The New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act in the Evangelist
The Evangelist mentions Jubilee USA as the driving forces behind the passage of the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act (S4747, A2970). Read an excerpt below, and click here for the full article.
A Catholic approach to global debt
By Walter Ayres
Earlier this month, Albany became the focus of a campaign to address the complicated issue of international debt in a way that is fair and just.
So I happily joined representatives of various faiths, advocacy groups and labor organizations for a rally at the Capitol in support of legislation that would, in the process, also address matters such as inflation, high-food costs and the reality that developing countries need debt relief as quickly as possible.
The focus of this concern is a bill known as the New York Taxpayer and International Debt Crises Protection Act (S4747, A2970), sponsored by Assemblymember Patricia Fahy. The New York State Catholic Conference supports the bill because “these debt relief initiatives have direct, positive effects for our trading partners, the legislation addresses U.S. inflation and economic and supply shocks and helps bring down the cost of eggs, flour, coffee and other commodities.”
Read here for more.
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Kushan Gupta published Honduran newspaper El Heraldo quotes Eric LeCompte on SDRs allocation in Press 2021-09-22 11:01:31 -0400
Honduran newspaper El Heraldo quotes Eric LeCompte on SDRs allocation
Honduran newspaper El Heraldo quoted Eric LeCompte in an article discussing $300 million on SDRs allocated to Honduras. Read an excerpt below and the full article here.
$300 million will favor Honduras
By Roldán Duarte Maradiaga
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will carry out a global issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR), in favor of its members, for an amount of US $ 650,000 million, “destined to underpin the global economic recovery and help the nations that must face gigantic levels of debt”. That amount is expected to be distributed according to the quotas of each country.
Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, believes that the measure adopted by the IMF "will not be enough." He believes that: "Rich countries that receive emergency reserves that they do not need, should transfer those resources to developing countries that are fighting the pandemic." In this case, we must await the reaction of the advanced countries."
Read more here.