This note was produced as background to the IEO evaluation of the IMF and Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa. It sets out the technical analysis underpinning the evaluation's estimate for spending and absorption ratios and elaborates further on its scope, rationale and limitations. It also presents more...

Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the effect of growth on poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on growth. Instead, the poor benefit less from...

This paper criticises the World Bank as overly optimistic with respect to its ability to fine-tune development aid and to focus it on countries with 'good' policies rather than on countries with 'poor' policies in order to raise its effectiveness. It is shown that recipient regions showed very...

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...

The Country Program Evaluation (CPE) will seek to assess how well the Bank Group-supported strategy was aligned with Georgia's main development challenges and how effective the Bank Group's support was in addressing these challenges. The evaluation seeks to identify lessons that support the...

This paper develops an adaptive learning model under uncertainty that examines evolution of capital account polices over time and across developing regions. In the framework, countries' past experiences and IMF programs influence policymakers' beliefs about the impact of capital account...