Does policy conditionality worsen domestic welfare, as governments are forced to attempt unpopular reforms resulting in damaging protests, or does conditionality help implement reforms that otherwise would have been impossible? This paper analyzes these questions. Using a game-theoretic...

In principle, international financial institutions (IFIs) can use their leverage as creditors to prompt governments to undertake policy reform. Yet such lending has been frequently linked to unsustainable debt levels and little reform. This paper illustrates how the dual roles of IFIs as...

What determines the spatial distribution of economic activity? And why is economic activity sometimes ‘lumpy', distributed in a core-periphery pattern in some countries? This article uses new subregional data on the spatial distribution of economic activity for a large cross section of...