Macroeconomic effects of IMF-sponsored programs in Latin America: output costs, program recidivism and the vicious cycle of failed stabilizations

Michael Hutchison and Ilan Noy

No 03-02, Pacific Basin Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Abstract: We investigate the effects of IMF stabilization programs, and the reasons behind the unusually high IMF activity and relatively low program completion rates in Latin America. We base our tests on a panel, and distinguish between IMF program approvals and completion. We find that Latin America has higher output costs of IMF programs (especially when completed), no improvement in the current account, and a much higher likelihood of program failure and recidivism than other regions. The common finding that entering into an IMF-supported program incurs real short-run costs on the economy is entirely driven by the experiences in Latin America.

Keywords: Economic development - Latin America; International Monetary Fund; Macroeconomics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lam and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/pb03-02.pdf Full Text (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Macroeconomic effects of IMF-sponsored programs in Latin America: output costs, program recidivism and the vicious cycle of failed stabilizations (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedfpb:03-02

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Pacific Basin Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library ().