 How successful is World Bank lending for structural adjustment?Patrick Conway No 581, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank Abstract: To measure the effectiveness of the World Bank's structural adjustment programs, the author examines the data on actual economic performance for 75 countries for the period 1976-86. He finds a clear association between participation in a World Bank adjustment lending program and cross-country differences in economic performance and policy. Countries that participated in adjustment lending programs tended to have the following characteristics, compared with countries that did not participate in such programs: (a) more rapid economic growth; (b) more rapid inflation; (c) a less negative current account balance as a percentage of GNP; (d) deeper financial sectors; (e) a lower ratio of current government spending to GNP; and (f) depreciation of the real exchange rate. The first three indicators reflect differing performance; the second three, different policy mixes. In other words, the countries have not benefited merely by increased financing at the margin but have also undertaken significantly different economic policies. Keywords: Economic Stabilization; Economic Theory&Research; Environmental Economics&Policies; Achieving Shared Growth; Macroeconomic Management (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:581 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.