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Low- and middle-income country governments are increasingly tapping the global debt capital markets. This is increasing the amount of finance available for development, but at a considerably higher cost than traditional external borrowing on concessional terms. Using a novel methodology based on estimating sovereign credit ratings using the Moody's scorecard, and examining the associations between these ratings and the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment scores, this paper examines how making improvements in the quality of economic policies and institutions can help lower governments' financing costs. This method aims to overcome the small-sample problem due to the number of rated developing country sovereigns still being relatively limited (although growing). Better economic governance Country Policy and Institutional Assessment scores are associated with better estimated ratings and materially lower financing costs; on average, improvements that are sufficient to increase the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment economic governance indicator score by one point are associated with interest costs that are lower by about 40 basis points, even setting aside the direct impact on ratings of better governance indicators. There are many reasons why improving governance is a good thing. Among them is the potential payoff to the public purse savings of USD 40 million or more on a standard USD 1 billion, 10-year bond.

Capital Markets --- Capital Markets and Capital Flows --- Country Policy --- Debt Management --- Debt Markets --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financing Costs --- Governance --- Institutional Assessment --- Public Debt --- Public Financial Management --- Public Sector Development --- Sovereign Bond Market --- Sovereign Credit Rating --- Sovereign Debt