Merry sisterhood or guarded watchfulness? The cooperation between the IMF and the World Bank.

摘要

Anecdotal evidence shows that in some countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank speak with one voice, while in others (for example, Thailand during the Asian crisis) they provide conflicting policy advice. This study explains why the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) and the World Bank sometimes cooperate and sometimes do not. “Cooperation” denotes consistency of the Bank's and the Fund's policy advice.; This research identifies necessary and sufficient conditions of Bank-Fund cooperation on the basis of four country case studies and two units of analysis. The country case studies are Ghana, Vietnam, Pakistan and Peru. The two units of analysis are episodes and issues. For each of the four countries, the period in which both the Fund and the World Bank have provided policy-based lending has been divided into several episodes. In most of these episodes, various policy issues have been identified for which Bank-Fund cooperation is analyzed in detail. The total sample consists of 16 episodes and 26 issues. For every observation a specific set of variables has been measured (nine variables for episodes and 12 variables for issues). Coded as binary variable, each of these variables has been hypothesized to affect Bank-Fund cooperation. Country narratives document the way each variable has been coded. The method employed in analyzing the data is Boolean algebra.; This study finds that the variation in Bank-Fund cooperation can be explained by two variables, i.e., similarity in operational styles and domain consensus. The former variable relates to similarity in the rate of staff turnover, the degree of intraorganizational consistency, and operational speed; domain consensus measures whether one organization agrees to the scope of the other organization's operations. Highly correlated with each other, these two variables are interpreted to determine the degree of Bank-Fund communication. Inconsistency is found particularly likely in the areas of fiscal policy and financial sector reform. Domain dissent is found more likely when the borrowing government's negotiating position is strong than when it is weak. The study presents specific recommendations for ensuring Bank-Fund consistency.