Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on growth. The poor benefit less from output expansion in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few adjustment loans. By the same token, the poor suffer less fro...

Good governance reforms aim at transforming African state bureaucracies into efficient, transparent, and accountable institutions. These policies are inserted into the national administrative apparatus by means of conditions attached to the financial support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although the conditions exactly match the priorities of these international f...

Structural adjustment, as measured by the number of adjustment loans from the IMF and World Bank, reduces the growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Growth does reduce poverty, but I find no evidence for a direct effect of structural adjustment on growth. Instead, the poor benefit less from output expansion in countries with many adjustment loans than in countries with few adjustment loans. By...

We analyze the influence of IMF and World Bank programs on political regime transitions. We develop an extended version of Acemoglu and Robinson’s [American Economic Review 91, 2001] model of political transitions to show how the anticipation of new loans from international financial institutions can trigger political transitions which would not otherwise have taken place. We test this unexplor...

The need for radical re-thinking on development strategy is imperative for African countries to be relevant in the global economy. This is further reinforced by the stark reality of extreme poverty in Africa. Over the years, the share of Africa in global trade remained insignificant despite the implementation of the policies that were recommended by international financial and development insti...

Much has been said about the failing policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In this essay, I attempt to explain why the IMF has pursued policies that in many cases not only failed to promote the stated objectives of enhancing growth and stability, but were probably counterproductive and even flew in the face of a considerable body of theoretical and empirical work that suggested the...