Public Goods or Political Pandering

Evidence from IMF Programs in Latin America and Eastern Europe

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7822956
AutoresGrigore Pop-Eleches (0000-0003-3570-6233, Princeton University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen53
Número3
Páginas787-816
Fecha de publicación2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-8833 • E-ISSN: 1468-2478
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2478.2009.00556.x
OpenAlexW1480728969
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17
Referencias citadas45

This article uses empirical evidence from Latin American and East European International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs from 1982 to 2001 to analyze the nature and the extent of preferential lending practices by the IMF. Unlike prior work, which focused on narrow political interference from large IMF member states, the present analysis differentiates between such narrow interests and the Fund's international systemic responsibilities, which may justify the preferential treatment of systemically important countries to prevent broader regional or global crises. The empirical results suggest that systemically based deviations from technocratic impartiality predominate in situations—such as the Latin American debt crisis—where international financial stability is under serious threat. Under such circumstances, economically important countries do receive preferential IMF treatment but only when experiencing severe crises, while narrow "private goods" considerations are largely sidelined. When systemic threats are less immediate—such as in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1990s—IMF favoritism reflects a more volatile and region-specific mix of private and public considerations in line with the changing interests of powerful Western nations in the developing world

Conditionality · Debt · Debt crisis · Development economics · Economics · Impartiality · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public good · Technocracy · Finance · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Global Financial Crisis and Policies · International Development and Aid · Law