One feature of adjustment loans that has been often overlooked in their evaluation is their frequent repetition to the same country, with such extremes as the 30 IMF and World Bank adjustment loans to Argentina over 1980-99 or the 26 adjustment loans to Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. The rate of...

The widely publicized finding that "aid promotes growth in a good policy environment" is not robust to the inclusion of new data or alternative definitions of "aid," "policy" or "growth." The idea that "aid buys growth" is on shaky ground theoretically and empirically. It doesn't help that aid...

Analysis of adjustment loans often overlooks their repetition to the same country. Repetition changes the nature of the selection problem. None of the top 20 recipients of repeated adjustment lending over 1980-99 were able to achieve reasonable growth and contain all policy distortions. About...