Economic adjustment and reform programs, including those supported by international financial institutions (IFIs), must cope with informational asymmetries and special interest politics. This presents a particularly serious issue when IFIs make structural economic reforms a condition for...

This paper explains the IMF approach to economic stabilization. It argues that a Fund-supported program is a process, comprising six broadly defined phases, that evolves along a multiplicity of potential pathways. The paper discusses the three-pronged approach to stabilization at the core of all...

Understanding of the domestic political environment is key to building broad country ownership and the successful implementation of reform programs supported by international financial institutions (IFIs). But recipient countries are not unitary actors: policymakers are influenced by special...

IMF lending is generally conditional on specified policies and outcomes. These conditions usually are negotiated compromises between policies initially favored by the Fund and by the country`s authorities. In some cases the authorities might be satisfied enough with the outcome to take...

This paper assesses the implementation of IMF-supported programs using measures of program interruptions, compliance with conditionally, and the share of committed funds disbursed. The econometric model allows an evaluation of the importance for program implementation of political conditions in...

This paper assesses empirically the links among a country`s institutions and political environment, its implementation of IMF-supported programs, and macroeconomic performance in a sample of 197 programs approved between 1992 and 2002. We find that a stronger institutional and political...

We analyze how the altruism of an international financial institution (IFI) towards its low-income member countries (LICs) alters the effectiveness of its loans. We study IFI loans to a credit-constrained LIC. The IFI`s repayment policy is determined by the interplay of its concerns for the...

Improving the effectiveness of financial assistance programs is a priority of international financial institutions (IFIs). This paper examines the effectiveness of alternative assistance instruments in a dynamic political economy framework. Economic policies of the receiving country are...

This paper argues that EMU has been and continues to be a politically driven process. In this perspective, it examines the issues and the implications of potential Euroexit and Euro break up: it underlines that these processes would have a prominent political dimension, as was the case for the...

While the Court of Justice of the European Union has approved the European financial assistance schemes, the haircut of public creditors appears as a possible next step of escalation in the euro debt crisis. This article explores the legal boundaries set by the EU Treaty on such debt...