We were asked by the Independent Evaluation Office to outline political science methods for assessing the chances of reform implementation in an ex-ante fashion. We agreed to illustrate how these tools 'work' by using Pakistan as a case study. The recent literature on IMF-sponsored reforms...

Liberals argue that economic policy reforms will benefit most in terms of better access to goods, less inflation and better economic opportunities. Critics of market reforms, among them Marxists, critical theorists, skeptics of globalization as well as a large portion of the NGO community, see...

The global economic downturn has heightened concerns about intervention by global financial institutions and the maintenance of political stability. At least one, prominently-published article purports to show that signing on to an IMF structural adjustment program (SAP) increases the risk of...