Social Unrest in the Wake of IMF Structural Adjustment Programs

Caleb Stroup and Benjamin Zissimos

No 4211, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper proposes an answer to the question of why social unrest sometimes occurs in the wake of an IMF Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). Under certain circumstances, partly determined by a country’s comparative advantage, a nation’s elite may have an incentive to make transfers to the rest of society through government employment in order to quell social unrest. But under an SAP, the elite are constrained from making such transfers and consequently social unrest may arise. The paper proposes a framework from which a prediction can be made about the circumstances under which social unrest can be expected to occur. It then takes this prediction to the data and finds empirical support for it.

Keywords: institutions; International Monetary Fund (IMF); social unrest; structural adjustment; trade integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D74 F10 O12 P14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Social Unrest in the Wake of IMF Structural Adjustment Programs (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4211

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