The Apparent Effects of Recent IMF Stabilization Programs

Abstract

IMF conditional programs have increasingly come under attack as not being in the best interest of countries that negotiate such programs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of IMF programs on some major macroeconomic variables in countries that came under IMF guidance in the post-1972 period. This will shed some light on the question of how IMF programs affect countries. The mechanics of conditional IMF programs are discussed in Section I. Previous studies done in this area are briefly discussed in the first part of Section II. The statistical results of this paper are then presented in the second part of Section II.