Evaluating the effect of IMF lending to low-income countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dicks-Mireaux, L; Mecagni, M; Schadler, S
• 署名单位: International Monetary Fund
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00066-3
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 495-526
• 关键词: International Monetary Fund; CONDITIONALITY; stabilization programs

摘要

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to apply to a group of low-income borrowers from the IMF, the most commonly used technique for measuring the independent effects on economic developments of IMF support; and to develop a minimum set of diagnostic tests for determining whether necessary conditions for using the methodology exist. The modified control-group methodology is used to measure the effect of IMF support on three key variables - output growth, inflation, and the external debt/service ratio. The sample comprises adjustment programs begun during 1986-1991 supported by the IMF's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF). The distinguishing feature of the modified control-group approach is the estimation of a policy counterfactual - policies that would have been followed in the absence of IMF support against which to compare actual policies and resulting outcomes. Using this approach for the ESAF, the sample reveals statistically significant beneficial effects of IMF support on output growth and the debt/service ratio but no effects on inflation. Diagnostic tests of these results, rarely if ever reported in the literature, are shown to be critical in interpreting the validity of the results of assessments of adjustment lending. For this sample, at least, the diagnostic tests cast doubt on the reliability of estimates of the effects of IMP-supported programs using panel data in a modified control-group model. The most obvious and manageable modifications to the model do not overcome its basic weaknesses. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: E65; F33.