The Effect Of International Monetary Fund And World Bank Programs On Poverty

There is some evidence that IMF and World Bank adjustment lending smooths consumption for the poor, reducing the rise in poverty for any given contraction of the economy but also reducing the fall in poverty for any given expansion. Adjustment lending plays a similar role as inequality, reducing poverty's sensitivity to the economy's aggregate growth rate.

January 2001 There is some evidence that IMF and World Bank adjustment lending smooths consumption for the poor, reducing the rise in poverty for any given contraction of the economy but also reducing the fall in poverty for any given expansion. Adjustment lending plays a similar role as inequality, reducing poverty's sensitivity to the economy's aggregate growth rate. Structural adjustment--as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank--reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Easterly finds no evidence for structural adjustment having a direct effect on growth. The poor benefit less from output expansion in countries with many adjustment loans than they do in countries with few such loans. By the same token, the poor suffer less from an output contraction in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few. Why would this be? One hypothesis is that adjustment lending is countercyclical in ways that smooth consumption for the poor. There is evidence that some policy variables under adjustment lending are countercyclical, but no evidence that the cyclical component of those policy variables affects poverty. Easterly speculates that the poor may be ill placed to take advantage of new opportunities created by structural adjustment reforms, just as they may suffer less from the loss of old opportunities in sectors that were artificially protected before reform. Poverty's lower sensitivity to growth under adjustment lending is bad news when an economy expands and good news when it contracts. These results could be interpreted as giving support to either the critics or the supporters of structural adjustment programs. This paper--a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the effect of growth on poverty. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

There is some evidence that IMF and World Bank adjustment lending smooths consumption for the poor, reducing the rise in poverty for any given contraction of the economy but also reducing the fall in poverty for any given expansion. Adjustment lending plays a similar role as inequality, reducing poverty's sensitivity to the economy's aggregate growth rate. Structural adjustment - as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank - reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Easterly finds no evidence for structural adjustment having a direct effect on growth.The poor benefit less from output expansion in countries with many adjustment loans than they do in countries with few such loans. By the same token, the poor suffer less from an output contraction in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few. Why would this be? One hypothesis is that adjustment lending is countercyclical in ways that smooth consumption for the poor. There is evidence that some policy variables under adjustment lending are countercyclical, but no evidence that the cyclical component of those policy variables affects poverty. Easterly speculates that the poor may be ill placed to take advantage of new opportunities created by structural adjustment reforms, just as they may suffer less from the loss of old opportunities in sectors that were artificially protected before reform.Poverty's lower sensitivity to growth under adjustment lending is bad news when an economy expands and good news when it contracts. These results could be interpreted as giving support to either the critics or the supporters of structural adjustment programs.This paper - a product of Macroeconomics and Growth, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the effect of growth on poverty. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

Overview of macroeconomic disaster in the making

Perpetuating Poverty is an eye-opening review of the scandalous record of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015: Ending Poverty and Sharing Prosperity was written jointly by the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund, with substantive inputs from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This year's report details, for the first time, progress toward the WBG's twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity and assesses the state of policies and institutions that are important for achieving them. The report continues to monitor progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Also for the first time, the report includes information about high-income countries. It finds that while gaps in living standards have been closing in many countries, the well-being of households in the bottom 40 percent, as measured by the non-income MDGs such as access to education and health services, remains below that of households in the top 60 percent. The focus of this year's report is on three elements needed to make growth more inclusive and sustainable: investment in human capital that favors the poor, the best use of safety nets, and steps to ensure the environmental sustainability of economic growth. These three elements are imperative to all countries' development strategies, and are also fundamental to global efforts to achieve the twin goals, the MDGs, and the Sustainable Development Goals that will succeed the MDGs. Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015 was prepared in collaboration with regional development banks and other multilateral partners.

An interdisciplinary collection of essays from leading academics and experts addressing how the IMF can support economic growth, poverty reduction, and macroeconomic stability in the world's poorest regions.