IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jpolrf/v24y2021i2p170-188.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of IMF programs on poverty, income inequality and social expenditure in low income countries: an empirical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Graham Bird
  • Faryal Qayum
  • Dane Rowlands

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of IMF programs on poverty, income inequality and government expenditure on education and health. It distinguishes between non-concessional and concessional programs and examines the effect of contingent factors; program completion, IMF resources, the size of the initial economic problems and aid dependency. Our findings suggest that, in general, IMF programs have not significantly increased poverty and income inequality; in some instances they are associated with reduced poverty and income inequality. Moreover, we find little evidence that IMF programs lead to severe cuts in social expenditure.

Suggested Citation

  • Graham Bird & Faryal Qayum & Dane Rowlands, 2021. "The effects of IMF programs on poverty, income inequality and social expenditure in low income countries: an empirical analysis," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 170-188, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jpolrf:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:170-188
    DOI: 10.1080/17487870.2019.1689360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17487870.2019.1689360
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17487870.2019.1689360?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emrah Kocak & Hayriye Hilal Baglitas, 2022. "The path to sustainable municipal solid waste management: Do human development, energy efficiency, and income inequality matter?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1947-1962, December.
    2. Ablam Estel Apeti & Kwamivi Gomado, 2023. "IMF conditionality and structural reforms: Evidence from developing countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-97, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jpolrf:v:24:y:2021:i:2:p:170-188. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GPRE19 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.