The politics of hard choices: IMF programs and government spending

Abstract A cetitral conipnnetit of International Monetary Ftind (IMF) programs is reducing governmeni budge! delicits. We ask how domestic political consider-ations shape the distribution of cuts made by governments in IMF programs. Our central tinding is that IMF programs shrink the role played by domestic politics. While democracies allocate larger shares of their budgets to public services in the absence of IMF programs, the difference between Jemoctacics and nondctnucracies disap-pears under IMF programs. This result has important implications for our understand-ing of government spending priorities under different resource constraints. Critics of the Ititernational Monetary Fund (IMF) typically locus on the nature of conditionaiity impo.scd in exchange for loans. The IMF's programs are criticized for being insen.sitive to the burdeti adjustment places on the poor and most vultier-able itt society. But while the effect of the IMF's structural adjustment programs on various macroeconomic targets has been the subject of intense focus over the past twenty-five years, attention to their effect on the poor is relatively limited and reaches mixed conclusions. This article addresses the critique that IMF adjust