IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/3562.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Conditionality and Ownership in IMF Lending: A Political Economy Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Drazen, Allan

Abstract

The relation between IMF conditionality and country ownership of assistance programs is considered from a political economy perspective, focusing on the question of why conditionality is needed if it is in a country?s best interests to undertake the reform program. It is argued that heterogeneity of interests must form the basis of any discussion of conditionality and ownership. The Paper stresses a conflict between a reformist government and domestic interest groups that oppose reform, leading to a distinction between government and country ownership of a program. A model of lending and policy reform is presented that illustrates the effects of unconditional and conditional assistance first without and then with political constraints. It is shown that conditionality can play a key role even when the Fund and authorities agree on the goals of an assistance program.

Suggested Citation

  • Drazen, Allan, 2002. "Conditionality and Ownership in IMF Lending: A Political Economy Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 3562, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3562
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP3562
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dollar, David & Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "What Explains the Success or Failure of Structural Adjustment Programmes?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 894-917, October.
    2. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    3. Giulio Federico, 2001. "IMF Conditionality," Economics Papers 2001-W19, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, revised 01 Sep 2001.
    4. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    5. Mr. Pierre Dhonte, 1997. "Conditionality as an Instrument of Borrower Credibility," IMF Policy Discussion Papers 1997/002, International Monetary Fund.
    6. International Monetary Fund, 1998. "Do IMF-Supported Programs Work? A Survey of the Cross-Country Empirical Evidence," IMF Working Papers 1998/169, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "When is foreign aid policy credible? Aid dependence and conditionality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 61-84, February.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    9. Diwan, I. & Rodrik, D., 1992. "External Debt, Adjustment, and Burden Sharing: A Unified Framework," Princeton Studies in International Economics 73, International Economics Section, Departement of Economics Princeton University,.
    10. Olivier Jeanne & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2001. "International bailouts, moral hazard and conditionality," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 16(33), pages 408-432.
    11. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1989. "Conditionality, Debt Relief, and the Developing Country Debt Crisis," NBER Chapters, in: Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance, Volume 1: The International Financial System, pages 255-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mo, Jongryn, 1995. "Domestic Institutions and International Bargaining: The Role of Agent Veto in Two-Level Games," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 914-924, December.
    13. Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1989. "Conditionality, Debt Relief, and the Developing Country Debt Crisis," NBER Chapters, in: Developing Country Debt and the World Economy, pages 275-284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Mr. Mohsin S. Khan & Mr. Sunil Sharma, 2001. "IMF Conditionality and Country Ownership of Programs," IMF Working Papers 2001/142, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Mr. Alex Mourmouras & Mr. Wolfgang Mayer, 2002. "Vested Interests in a Positive Theory of IFI Conditionality," IMF Working Papers 2002/073, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Keisuke Iida, 1993. "When and How Do Domestic Constraints Matter?," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(3), pages 403-426, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prasanna Gai & Nicholas Vause, 2003. "Sovereign debt workouts with the IMF as delegated monitor - a common agency approach," Bank of England working papers 187, Bank of England.
    2. Spiros Bougheas & Indraneel Dasgupta & Oliver Morrissey, 2011. "Repayment versus Investment Conditions and Exclusivity in Lending Contracts," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 167(2), pages 247-265, June.
    3. Omotunde E.G. JOHNSON, 2005. "Country Ownership Of Reform Programmes And The Implications For Conditionality," G-24 Discussion Papers 35, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    4. Adrian Penalver, 2004. "How can the IMF catalyse private capital flows? A model," Bank of England working papers 215, Bank of England.
    5. Axel Dreher, 2009. "IMF conditionality: theory and evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 233-267, October.
    6. Weithoner, Thomas, 2006. "How can IMF policy eliminate country moral hazard and account for externalities?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1257-1276, December.
    7. Ostry, Jonathan D. & Jeanne, Olivier & Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, 2008. "A Theory of International Crisis Lending and IMF Conditionality," CEPR Discussion Papers 7022, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Mr. James M. Boughton & Mr. Alex Mourmouras, 2002. "Is Policy Ownership An Operational Concept?," IMF Working Papers 2002/072, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Elisabeth Paul, 2006. "A Survey of the Theoretical Economic Literature on Foreign Aid," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, May.
    10. Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Why conditional aid does not work and what can be done about it?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 381-402, April.
    11. Shim, Ilhyock & Sharma, Sunil & Chami, Ralph, 2008. "A Model of the IMF as a Coinsurance Arrangement," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 2, pages 1-41.
    12. Silvia Marchesi & Laura Sabani & Axel Dreher, 2009. "Agency and Communication in IMF Conditional Lending: Theory and Empirical Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 2574, CESifo.
    13. Almuth Scholl, 2018. "Debt Relief for Poor Countries: Conditionality and Effectiveness," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(339), pages 626-648, July.
    14. Tim Allen & Diana Weinhold, 2000. "Dropping the debt for the new millennium: is it such a good idea?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 857-875.
    15. Witold J. Henisz & Bennet A. Zelner & Mauro F. Guillen, 2004. "International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2004-713, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    16. Michaelowa, Katharina & Hefeker, Carsten, 2003. "Can Process Conditionality Enhance Aid Effectiveness? The Role of Bureaucratic Interest and Public Pressure," HWWA Discussion Papers 239, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    17. Giulio Federico, 2001. "IMF Conditionality," Economics Papers 2001-W19, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, revised 01 Sep 2001.
    18. Graham Bird, 2007. "The Imf: A Bird'S Eye View Of Its Role And Operations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 683-745, September.
    19. Tito Cordella & Giovanni Dell'Aricca, 2002. "Limits of Conditionality in Poverty Reduction Programs," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 49(Special i), pages 68-86.
    20. Mr. Alex Mourmouras & Mr. Peter Rangazas, 2004. "Conditional Lending Under Altruism," IMF Working Papers 2004/100, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    IMF; Foreign aid; Conditionality; Ownership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:3562. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.