Adjustment Programs And Bank Support

Adjustment should begin with policy and institutional reforms to deal with the ultimate causes of any macroeconomic crisis a country is experiencing. Only when progress has been made in reducing inflation and fiscal and balance of payment deficits should other structural reforms begin - of the public sector, trade and competition, the financial sector, and the labor market.

Most of the Bank's adjustment lending programs have increased the growth rate of GDP, the ratio of exports to GDP, and the ratios of saving to GDP. But the average ratio of investment to GDP is lower than 1970s levels. Sometimes unsustainable levels of public investment in the 1970s had led to economic crisis, and investment had to become more efficient. To restore growth, the challenge of the 1990s is to have good economic policies and to create the conditions needed to increase investment-to-GDP ratios.

China has done much to reform its price system, achieve macroeconomic stability, and restore growth. Nevertheless, price distortions remain in three key areas. This study suggests further price reforms for the energy, grain, and transport sectors. It explains why energy price adjustments should have only a modest effect on consumer prices, but a highly positive effect on the economy. It discusses why China may have to reduce consumer subsidies to achieve the necessary reforms for grain prices. The study describes what the government must do to strengthen commodity markets, generate competition, and make allowances for seasonal price variations. China's transport sector has been a critical development bottleneck. The paper reviews tariff adjustments and other reforms that would modernize the transport system and help it meet growing demand. These reforms also would encourage energy conservation and help integrate the national economy.

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

Experience has proven that an orderly adjustment process designed to establish a new equilibrium growth path is indispensible for improving the longer-term position of the poor. Some adjustment measures can affect the poor adversely. The most common way of addressing the adverse impact of adjustment has been the implementation of targeted compensatory programs. Such programs can compensate those affected directly by adjustment or provide temporary employment or relief to the chronically poor. Changes in the design of adjustment programs can promote the longer-run interest of the poor, but have received relatively little attention. Appropriate design changes can help to foster pro-poor growth and enable reallocations of public expenditures in ways that support, or improve the efficiency of, programs that help the poor to take advantage of the emerging economic opportunities. Finally, appropriate design changes can target subsidies more effectively. Subsidies that have a large impact on the incomes of the poor, should not be reduced or eliminated unless alternative means of reaching the poor are introduced.

A few political economy variables can successfully predict the outcome of an adjustment loan 75 percent of the time. To select promising candidates for adjustment, the World Bank must do a better job of understanding which environments are promising for reform and which are not. Being more selective may mean smaller volumes of lending.In the 1980s development assistance shifted largely from financing investments (such as roads and dams) to promoting policy reform. This change came because of a growing awareness that developing countries were held back more by poor policies than by a lack of finance for investment.After nearly 20 years' experience with policy-based or conditional lending, there have now been many studies of adjustment lending, most of which take a case-study approach. Many conclude that policy-based lending works if countries have decided on their own to reform.Dollar and Svensson examine a database of 220 World Bank-supported reform programs to identify why adjustment programs succeed or fail.They find that a few political economy variables can successfully predict the outcome of an adjustment loan 75 percent of the time. Variables under the World Bank's control-resources devoted to preparation and supervision or number of conditions-have no relationship with an adjustment program's success or failure.What development agencies must do, then, is select promising candidates for adjustment support. When the candidate is a poor selection, devoting more administrative resources or imposing more conditions will not increase the likelihood of successful reform.To improve its success rate with adjustment lending, the World Bank must become more selective and do a better job of understanding which environments are promising for reform and which are not. That is likely to lead to fewer adjustment loans, unless there is a significant change in the number of promising reformers. To become more effective at supporting policy reform, the agency must be willing to accept that this may lead to smaller volumes of lending.This paper - a product of the Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to examine aid effectiveness. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Economic Policies and the Effect of Foreign Aid (RPO 681-70).