RUI - The Political Economy of IMF Surveillance

国际货币基金组织（IMF）近年来一直是学术界关注的焦点。虽然我们越来越了解国际货币基金组织如何发放贷款，借款国是否会实施这些贷款所附带的条件，以及如何评估这些计划的更广泛影响，但我们对国际货币基金组织的日常工作仍然知之甚少。基金组织的主要工作之一是对成员国经济进行年度审查，以确保各国采取促进增长的政策。与基金组织的贷款相比，很少有人注意到基金组织的监督活动。了解监督的障碍之一是，直到最近，这还是基金组织与成员国之间的私人对话。近年来，这些磋商已变得透明。各国决定发布有关磋商的信息，使我们能够了解国际货币基金组织如何撰写报告，以及国际货币基金组织的监督如何影响国际市场的反应和各国的经济政策。此外，了解透明度的跨国差异可以告诉我们很多关于国际规范如何传播的信息。这些问题之所以重要，不仅因为监督尚未得到探索，还因为了解国际货币基金组织监督的有效性可以让我们更全面地了解国际合作。学者们研究IMF贷款，因为这是一个有执行力的领域：未能履行贷款条件的国家将无法获得剩余的贷款。相比之下，监督并没有得到执法的支持：不遵守IMF的国家会受到什么惩罚？美国的建议（大概）是由可能撤资的国际投资者造成的。了解国际货币基金组织监督的影响，有助于理解缺乏执行权的其他国际组织在什么情况下仍然可以发挥重要作用。在这个项目中使用的研究策略几乎完全是定量的。学生研究助理将帮助建立有关国家决策的数据集，以使其国际货币基金组织磋商透明化，以及透明度对国际资本市场和国家经济政策的影响。此外，首席研究员将查阅基金组织档案，对基金组织的报告（包括已发表的和未发表的）进行编码，以确定基金组织是否面临准确披露一国经济信息的激励。来自档案报告的信息也将依次用于构建数据集。这个项目扩展了我们对世界上最重要的国际组织之一的了解。在这样做的过程中，它有助于我们了解各国对透明度的激励措施以及透明度的重要性。此外，它还有助于为非经济领域的国际合作提供更广泛的经验。此外，由于这个拟议的项目是在本科院校研究指定下，它创建了一个新兴的本科研究集群来解决这些问题。

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been the focus of a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. While we increasingly understand how the IMF makes loans, whether or not the conditions attached to these loans will be implemented by borrowing countries, and how to assess the broader effects of these programs, we still know every little about the day-to-day work of the IMF. One of the Fund's main jobs is to engage in annual reviews of member country economies to ensure that countries are adopting growth-enhancing policies. In contrast to the Fund's lending, very little attention has been paid to the IMF's surveillance activities.One of the barriers to learning about surveillance has been that until very recently it was a private dialogue between the Fund and the member country. In recent years, these consultations have become transparent. Country decisions to release information regarding the consultation allow us to understand how the IMF writes its reports and how IMF surveillance affects both the responses of international markets and country economic policies. In addition, understanding cross-country variations in transparency tell us a great deal about how international norms spread.These questions are important not merely because surveillance is unexplored, but also because understanding the effectiveness of IMF surveillance tells us about international cooperation more generally. Scholars study IMF lending because it is an area in which there is enforcement: countries that fail to implement loan conditions lose access to remaining installments of the loan. By contrast, surveillance is not backed by enforcement: any penalties that are incurred by countries not following the IMF?s advice are (presumably) inflicted by international investors who might withdraw capital. Learning about the effects of IMF surveillance helps understand when other international organizations that lack enforcement power can still be consequential.The research strategy to be used in this project is almost exclusively quantitative. Student research assistants will help build datasets on country decisions to make their IMF consultations transparent and on the effects of transparency on international capital markets and country economic policies. In addition, the Principal Investigator will go to the IMF archives to code the Fund's reports (both published and not) to ascertain whether the Fund faces incentives to reveal information about a country's economy accurately. Information from the archival reports will in turn be used to build a dataset as well. This project extends our understanding of one of the most important international organizations in the world. In so doing, it helps us to learn about country incentives for transparency and how transparency matters. Moreover, it helps devise broader lessons for international cooperation in noneconomic areas. Moreover, because this proposed project is under the Research at Undergraduate Institutions designation, it creates a nascent undergraduate research cluster addressing these issues.