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The Economics of the Democratic Deficit: The Effect of IMF Programs on Inequality

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  • Lang, Valentin

Abstract

This study investigates the distributional effects of international organizations within their member countries. It addresses the issue empirically by examining the causal effect of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs on income inequality. Introducing a new instrumental variable for IMF programs, I exploit time variation in the IMF’s liquidity and cross-sectional variation in a country’s probability of having a lending arrangement with the IMF. Using panel data for 155 countries over the 1973–2013 period, the results show that IMF programs substantially increase income inequality in democracies, while having no such effect in non-democracies. The size of this effect on democracies is smaller the more democratized the IMF’s decision-making processes are. These results are consistent with the theory that powerful, ‘democratically deficient’ international organizations that interfere in domestic politics are capable of restricting the responsiveness of democratic governments to the preferences of their citizens.

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  • Lang, Valentin, 2016. "The Economics of the Democratic Deficit: The Effect of IMF Programs on Inequality," Working Papers 0617, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:awi:wpaper:0617
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    Cited by:

    1. Axel Dreher & Sarah Langlotz, 2020. "Aid and growth: New evidence using an excludable instrument," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 1162-1198, August.
    2. Chungshik Moon & Byungwon Woo, 2022. "Curse of friendship: IMF programme, friendship with the United States and foreign direct investment," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(7), pages 2188-2221, July.
    3. Axel Dreher & Katharina Michaelowa, 2008. "The political economy of international organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 331-334, December.
    4. Scheubel, Beatrice & Stracca, Livio & Tille, Cédric, 2019. "Taming the global financial cycle: What role for the global financial safety net?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 160-182.
    5. Daoud, Adel & Herlitz, Anders & Subramanian, S.V., 2022. "IMF fairness: Calibrating the policies of the International Monetary Fund based on distributive justice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    6. Kaplan, Lennart, 2021. ""Reversed favoritism" - Resolving the puzzle of discriminatory taxation in African agriculture," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 416, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Nicolas Mäder & Jean-Guillaume Poulain & Julien Reynaud, 2019. "Assessing IMF Lending: a Model of Sample Selection," IMF Working Papers 2019/157, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Adel Daoud & Anders Herlitz & SV Subramanian, 2020. "Combining distributive ethics and causal Inference to make trade-offs between austerity and population health," Papers 2007.15550, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    9. Muayad Ismail, 2020. "Evaluating the Macroeconomic Impact of IMF Programs in Sudan," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-21, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    10. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Brückner, Lutz, 2021. "The effects of trade, aid, and investment on China's image in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 483-498.
    11. Bernhard Reinsberg & Thomas Stubbs & Alexander Kentikelenis & Lawrence King, 2020. "Bad governance: How privatization increases corruption in the developing world," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(4), pages 698-717, October.
    12. Forster, Timon & Kentikelenis, Alexander E. & Stubbs, Thomas H. & King, Lawrence P., 2020. "Globalization and health equity: The impact of structural adjustment programs on developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    13. Thomas Stubbs & Bernhard Reinsberg & Alexander Kentikelenis & Lawrence King, 2020. "How to evaluate the effects of IMF conditionality," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 29-73, January.
    14. Kern, Andreas & Reinsberg, Bernhard & Rau-Göhring, Matthias, 2019. "IMF conditionality and central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 212-229.
    15. Gehring, Kai & Lang, Valentin, 2020. "Stigma or cushion? IMF programs and sovereign creditworthiness," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Brueckner, Lutz, 2018. "The Effects of Trade, Aid, and Investment on China's Image in Developing Countries," Working Papers 0646, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    17. Nathan M. Jensen & Noel P. Johnston & Chia-yi Lee & Hadi Sahin, 2020. "Crisis and contract breach: The domestic and international determinants of expropriation," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 869-898, October.

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