How does policy advice of the international monetary fund differ along the income of advised countries?

ABSTRACT

The policy advice literature has paid little attention to the role of international organizations in policy advisory systems. This article offers a systematic analysis of policy advice provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the framework of the IMF’s regular Article IV consultations. The article argues that the content of IMF advice differs according to the income of the advised countries. Content analyses of the Article IV consultation reports of 18 countries show correlations between the gross national income (GNI) of the advised countries and the function of advice in the policy cycle, the specificity of advice, the recommended policy instruments and the targeted policy issues. Results show that the IMF rather points to policy problems, advices on policy goals and focuses on improving implementation when advising lower income countries. When advising higher income countries, the IMF’s advice focuses on means and specific policy tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy advice
• international organizations
• International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• policy instruments
• policy cycle

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Caroline Schlaufer is a professor at the Public Policy Department of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Her work focuses on policy process theory, public policy in non-Western societies, and the use of evidence in policymaking.

ORCID

Caroline Schlaufer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2379-4849

Notes

1 Two countries that were randomly selected were not included in the analysis but replaced by the next randomly selected country. First, Eritrea was excluded, because the last Article IV consultation report dates back to 2003. Second, Togo was excluded, because the newest Article IV consultation report coincides with a new IMF lending arrangement. Thus, the report is formulated differently and not comparable to the others in the sample.

2 Table 4 includes only 379 recommendations. 108 recommendations were excluded, as they did not advise on a specific policy instrument.

3 This category includes advice that does not concern a specific policy field, but general public sector management issues (such as “address corruption in governmental services”).