Ricardo Alonzo Fernández Salguero
arXiv 5 Jul 2026 · Econometrics
arXiv:2607.04468 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
This article reassesses the meta-analytic evidence on the effect of International Monetary Fund programs on economic growth. The point of departure is the influential meta-analysis by Balima and Sokolova, which assembles 994 estimates from 36 studies and reports a positive average effect with substantial heterogeneity. The reanalysis presented here imposes four stricter requirements. It treats the study, rather than the reported estimate, as the primary inferential unit; it uses a source-informed classification of causal credibility; it models within-study dependence through study aggregation, correlated-effects sensitivity, multilevel CR2 inference, and robust variance estimation; and it evaluates publication-bias sensitivity through Egger, PET, PEESE, WAAP-like top-precision analysis, p-curve diagnostics, trim-and-fill, and exploratory selection models. The central result is not that IMF programs reduce growth everywhere, nor that the true effect is exactly zero. The result is narrower and stronger: the positive average effect in the aggregate literature is not robust once dependence, publication selection, heterogeneity, and credibility of identification are treated as first-order concerns. In the most defensible specifications, the average effect is statistically indistinguishable from zero, while equivalence to a substantively negligible effect is only partially supported and depends on the chosen equivalence bound.
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The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andrews, Isaiah, and Maximilian Kasy (2019) Identification of and Correction for Publication Bias | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 2 | Atoyan, Ruben, and Patrick Conway (2006) Evaluating the Impact of IMF Programs: A Comparison of Matching and Instrumental-Variable Estimators | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 3 | Bal-Gunduz, Yasemin (2016) The Economic Impact of Short-Term IMF Engagement in Low-Income Countries | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 4 | Balima, Hippolyte W., and Anna Sokolova (2021) IMF Programs and Economic Growth: A Meta-Analysis | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 5 | Barro, Robert J., and Jong-Wha Lee (2005) IMF Programs: Who Is Chosen and What Are the Effects? | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 6 | Bas, Muhammet A., and Randall W. Stone (2014) Adverse Selection and Growth under IMF Programs | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 7 | Binder, Michael, and Marcel Bluhm (2017) On the Conditional Effects of IMF Program Participation on Output Growth | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 8 | Bird, Graham (2001) IMF Programs: Do They Work? Can They Be Made to Work Better? | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 9 | Bird, Graham, and Dane Rowlands (2017) The Effect of IMF Programmes on Economic Growth in Low Income Countries: An Empirical Analysis | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 10 | Dicks-Mireaux, Louis, Mauro Mecagni, and Susan Schadler (2000) Evaluating the Effect of IMF Lending to Low-Income Countries | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 21 scored citations.