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Lending Credibility Lending Credibility The International Monetary Fund and the Post-Communist Transition Randall W. Stone PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Contents Contents vii Figures xi Tables xiii Acronyms xv Preface xix 1 Introduction 1 1.2 What Would We Like the IMF to Do? 10 I Models and Data 13 2 A Formal Model of Lending Credibility 15 2.1 The Model 21 2.2 The Equilibrium 22 2.3 Hypotheses Derived from the Formal Model 26 2.4 Conclusions 27 Appendix: A Formal Model of Lending Credibility 29 3 Studying IMF Effectiveness 38 3.1 Previous Research 38 3.2 Critiques Raised in the Literature 43 3.3 New Critiques 47 3.4 Research Design 48 3.5 Conclusions 57 4 An Empirical Test of the Model 58 4.1 Models of IMF Lending Decisions 59 4.2 Covariates of the Duration of Punishment Intervals 60 4.3 Covariates of Program Suspensions 66 4.4 Models of Policy Variables 72 viii CONTENTS 4.5 Conclusions 83 II History 86 5 Poland 89 5.1 The Balcerowicz Plan 90 5.2 The Extended Fund Facility 100 5.3 The Second Stand-by Agreement 107 5.4 Poland’s Turn to the Left 109 5.5 Conclusions 114 6 Russia 116 6.1 The Window of Opportunity Closes: 1992 118 6.2 The First Stand-by Agreement, July 1992 120 6.3 The Systemic Transformation Facility: May 1993 126 6.4 The STF Renewal, April 1994 128 6.5 The Second Stand-by Arrangement, April 1995 136 6.6 The Extended Fund Facility, February, 1996 138 6.7 The Third Stand-by, July 1998 153 6.8 The Fourth Stand-by, July 1999 158 6.9 Conclusions 164 7 Ukraine 169 7.2 The Systemic Transformation Facility, 1994 177 7.3 The First Stand-by, 1995 179 7.4 The Second Stand-by, 1996 183 7.5 The Third Stand-by, 1997 190 7.6 The Extended Fund Facility, 1998 196 7.7 Conclusions 207 8 Bulgaria 209 8.1 False Starts, 1990-1994 210 8.2 The Origins of the Crisis, 1995-1996 217 8.3 Consolidation under the Currency Board 227 8.4 Conclusion 231 9 Conclusions 233 9.1 Research Design 234 9.2 Policy Implications 239 Acronyms ASI American Statistics Index AWS Solidarity Electoral Action BBWR Non-Party Bloc for Reform BNB Bulgarian National Bank BSP Bulgarian Socialist Party CBR Central Bank of Russia CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CSFB Credit-Suisse First Boston CUP Central Planning Agency EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EFF Extended Fund Facility EMS European Monetary System EU European Union FIMACO Foreign Investment Management Company FSB Federal Security Service GDP Gross Domestic Product GEE Generalized Evaluation Estimator GKO Short-term State Obligations (Russian treasury bonds) G-7 Group of Seven Industrialized Countries HIID Harvard Institute for International Development IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) ICPSR Intercollegiate Consortium for Political and Social Research IFS International Financial Statistics IMET International Military Education and Training IMF International Monetary Fund ITAR-TASS Russian Information Agency KGB Committee for State Security KLD Liberal Democratic Congress KPN Confederation for an Independent Poland KPRF Communist Party of the Russian Federation LDPR Liberal Democratic Party of Russia LHS Left-hand side MAE Monetary and Exchange Department of the IMF xvi ACRONYMS M0 Base money, a narrow measure of the money supply M2 A broad measure of the money supply MRF Movement for Reforms and Freedom MVF International Monetary Fund (in Russian) NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NBP National Bank of Poland NBU National Bank of Ukraine NDA Net domestic assets (of a central bank) NIR Net international reserves (of a central bank) NIS Newly Independent States NSZZ “S” Independent, Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity” OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OLS Ordinary Least Squares OMRI Open Media Research Institute PBE Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium PC Center Alliance PL Peasant Alliance PPPP Polish Beer Lovers’ Party PSL Polish Peasant Party PUWP Polish United Workers’ Party (Communist Party) RAO Joint Stock Company (in Russian) RFE/RL Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RHS Right-hand side SBA Stand-by Arrangement SBU Security Service of Ukraine SDR Special drawing rights SdRP Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland SDS Union of Democratic Forces (in Bulgarian) SLD Alliance of the Democratic Left SOE State-owned enterprise STF Systemic Transformation Facility TASS Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union UD Democratic Union UDF Union of Democratic Forces (SDS in Bulgarian) UP Union of Labor UPR Union of Real Politics USAID United States Agency for International Development USMil United States military aid USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics xvii UW Union of Freedom VAT Value Added Tax WAK Catholic Electoral Alliance ZChN Christian National Union Preface institution that seemed to me poorly understood by the scholarly community. At the time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF, or simply the Fund) was a likely focus for academic conferences but not for congressional hearings or street protests in Washington. Most of the undergraduates I taught had no idea what the IMF was until they took my course, nor could they have distinguished national political economy, such as WTO, IBRD, ECB, OECD–all of which are important institutions in their own right, of course. East Europeans, on the other hand, along with citizens of developing countries, recognized the signif- icance of my topic immediately. Indeed, in the course of my travels across the region I have often been asked which agency I worked for: the IMF or the CIA?1 The IMF quickly lost its obscurity in the United States, largely as a result of the events related in this book. Subsequently, I have been asked to address Sunday school classes, groups of concerned students, and gatherings things, and they are relevant to the practical concerns of churchgoers, students, and policymakers, but this is not primarily a book of policy advice. This is a work of political science, and its objective is to train the best tools available to social science on an important substantive question in order to see what we can learn in the process. It is not easy to write about the IMF without taking sides. When I mention at Washington cocktail parties that I am writing a book about the IMF and the post-Communist transition, I am invariably asked the question, “Are you for or against?” My standard reply is that I am in favor: I think the post-Communist transition was a pretty good idea. Flip rejoinders aside, my position on the IMF is more supportive than critical on balance, and I hope that, as devastating as my criticisms may seem, they will be seen in time as constructive. I believe that both the extreme Right and the extreme Left are fundamentally mistaken about the IMF. It is neither simply an example of the abuses of big government, nor to ameliorate the situation of the poor. In principle, the IMF has an important role to play in improving government policy, which can greatly improve the 1My truthful answer, that I was an independent researcher working on a book, was often met with skepticism. xx PREFACE lot of the poorest of the global poor. In practice, I can show that it has played a constructive role in a number of post-Communist countries, which has, in fact, This is the starting point for a barrage of criticism that I address to the IMF, as well as the motivation for the hope that inspires my most important policy recommendation. The IMF is effective only in countries from which it can credibly threaten to withdraw support. In the work that follows, I show that the credibility of the IMF’s bargaining position depended on the international ticular, those that received the most foreign aid from the United States—were treated very leniently and, consequently, were much less likely to follow IMF advice. The IMF can lend credibility to governments sorely in need of it, but only when the conditions attached to its own lending are credibly enforced. interactions with the Fund than ordinarily countries that lacked such leverage. gic liability rather than an asset. In a crowning irony, the same can be said United States, the most important policy goal in the post-Communist region in the 1990s was the consolidation of democracy and a market economy in Rus- sia. The U.S. government’s continual efforts to shield Russia from the rigor of IMF conditions, however, compromised Russia’s efforts at market reform, and the prolonged economic transition that resulted ultimately undermined the basis of democratic legitimacy in the most important country in the region. The United States gained a number of short-term concessions from Russia in always an advantage; indeed, the United States would have achieved a much most important piece of policy advice is this: As is true of central banks, in- are independent of political authorities. The IMF is a tremendous force for far- tool for managing the affairs of the large countries that are most important to the international system as long as it remains dependent on the policies of a small number of powerful countries. I have accumulated many debts in the process of completing this project. The greatest is to my colleagues and students, past and present, at the Univer- sity of Rochester. In particular, I learned a great deal from my colleagues Jeff Banks, Randy Calvert, John Duggan, Curt Signorino, and Dave Weimer, with- out which the technical parts of this book would have been much less effective.
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