In a 2005 article in this journal, Genberg poses the question of whether countries with IMF programs have “privileged access” to international capital markets. In attempting to answer this question, he cautions about reading too much into some of the recent literature. In this paper, we...

In seeking to understand IMF lending early large sample econometric studies tended to focus on economic factors. Political and institutional influences were often deemed to be reflected in the frequently large residual. At the same time increasing anecdotal evidence was being amassed to suggest...

Although widely used by international financial institutions, policy conditionality often fails in the sense that countries do not fully implement it. Up to now most research has focused on the design of conditionality. This paper, however, uses political economy analysis to address the issue of...

The eurozone crisis has involved sharp output declines and has generated much discussion about the appropriate design of macroeconomic policy both in terms of dealing with the contemporary situation and minimising the risks of future crises. Much of the debate surrounding the crisis has focused...

In a 2005 article in this journal, Genberg poses the question of whether countries with IMF programs have “privileged access” to international capital markets. In attempting to answer this question, he cautions about reading too much into some of the recent literature. In this paper, we...

In recent years, the International Monetary Fund has seen a spate of critical analyses of its lending activities. It has even been suggested that politics influences the allocation of IMF lending with powerful industrialized countries being able to use Fund lending to further their own...