In this paper we suggest that the dual role played by the IMF, as a creditor and as a monitor of economic reforms, might explain the lack of credibility of the Fund threat of sanctioning non-compliance with conditionality. Specifically, we show that the IMF desire to preserve its reputation as a...

Prolonged use of Fund resources has consistently expanded since the 1970s among both lowincome and middle-income countries. Overall this phenomenon suggests a lack of effectiveness of Fund supported programs. Such conditionality failure has been explained by the literature by looking both at the...

The existence of an empirical relationship between the adoption of an IMF programme and the concession of a debt rescheduling by commercial creditors is tested using a bivariate probit model. If countries who have arrangements with the IMF are more likely than others to obtain a rescheduling of...

We focus on the role that the transmission of information between a multilateral (e.g., the IMF) and a country has for optimal (conditional) reform design. The main result is that the informational advantage of the country must be strictly greater than the advantage of the multilateral in order...

We examine both grants and net loans made to low income countries during the last two decades to understand the main reasons that motivated the behaviour of both donors and creditors. We find that the total amount of net transfers to HIPCs, as compared to non-HIPCs, have been increasing with...

This paper explores the role of information transmission and misaligned interests across levels of government in explaining variation in the degree of decentralization across countries. Within a two-sided incomplete information principal-agent framework, it analyzes two alternative...

This paper explores the role of information transmission in explaining donors\' choice between project aid and budget support. Budget support increases the involvement of recipient governments in the decision-making process and can thus be an example of a “delegation-scheme\". Conversely,...

This paper analyzes the impact of different governance structures on the degree of Bank-Fund cooperation, focusing on the quality of their information transmission. It compares the performance of a decentralized governance with that of a centralized one. A centralized structure better addresses...