Stigma or Cushion? IMF Programs and Sovereign Creditworthiness

Kai Gehring and Valentin F. Lang

No 7339, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: IMF programs are often considered to carry a “stigma” that triggers adverse market reactions. We show that such a negative IMF effect disappears when accounting for endogenous selection into programs. To proxy for a country’s access to financial markets, we use credit ratings and investor assessments for 100 countries from 1987 to 2013. Our first identification strategy exploits the differential effect of changes in IMF liquidity on loan allocation. We find that the IMF can “cushion” against falling creditworthiness, despite contractionary adjustments resulting from its programs. A second, event-based strategy using country-times-year fixed effects supports this positive signaling effect. A supplementary text analysis of rating statements validates that agencies perceive IMF programs as positive, particularly when they are associated with reform commitments.

Keywords: International Monetary Fund; sovereign credit ratings; capital market accss; creditworthiness; financial crises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E44 F33 F34 G24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-mac and nep-opm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7339

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