 Professional ties that bind: how normative orientations shape IMF conditionalityJeffrey M. Chwieroth Review of International Political Economy, 2015, vol. 22, issue 4, 757-787 Abstract: Staff play a key part in designing IMF conditionality, and yet the literature provides a narrow view of their motivations. This article shows how the design of IMF conditionality is linked to the normative orientations of the staff and their common professional training. Professional ties from similar training help to bind the staff together around a shared set of normative orientations that inform the IMF's policy goals. When borrowing-country officials do not share these orientations, the staff are motivated to tighten conditionality. This behaviour also fits with staff concerns about time-inconsistency and moral hazard. I find robust statistical support for this argument using a dataset based on the professional ties that exist between the IMF staff and borrowing-country officials. Yet conditionality is not found to be more lenient when country officials share the normative orientations of the IMF staff. Staff concerns about time-inconsistent preferences and moral hazard likely weigh against more lenient treatment where normative adherence is stronger. Date: 2015 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:22:y:2015:i:4:p:757-787 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2014.898214 Access Statistics for this article Review of International Political Economy is currently edited by Gregory Chin, Juliet Johnson, Daniel Mügge, Kevin Gallagher, Ilene Grabel and Cornelia Woll More articles in Review of International Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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