Date of Award

2025

Degree Type

Restricted to Claremont Colleges Dissertation

Degree Name

Economics, PhD

Program

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Graham Bird

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Thomas Willett

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Levan Efremidze

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Dane Rowlands

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2025 Harvey Baldovino

Subject Categories

Economics

Abstract

Since its inception in the aftermath of the Bretton Woods Conference, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has continued to play a significant role in the international monetary system. However, its performance and activities has been met with criticism and scrutiny. This dissertation is a collection of four chapters that investigate selected contemporary issues surrounding IMF-supported programs. The first two chapters deal with the issue of prolonged use of IMF resources, as well as the relatively recent phenomenon of graduation from the IMF. The first of these chapters provide a case study of the Philippines, a country that went from being the worst example of a prolonged user to becoming a full graduate from the use of IMF resources in the post-2000s era. We show that the country’s path to graduation is associated with positive changes in key economic and institutional variables reflected by improvements in monetary policy, export diversification and economic efficiency. In addition, changes in the political environment shifted the country’s preferences towards home-grown reforms and reserve accumulation as the means to resolve balance of payments crises. The combination of these factors rendered IMF assistance unnecessary, such that the country has maintained its reputation for graduation even during times of global economic distress. The second chapter investigates the phenomenon of graduation empirically using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Using this method, we determine sets of conditions that lead to graduation from the prolonged use of IMF resources. We found two pathways towards graduation; the first pathway involves the combination of middle-income status, low fiscal deficit, low current account deficit, above average export growth and a highly effective government. The second configuration shows a pathway to graduation despite inadequate reserve levels, for as long as the country is of middle-income status, has above average export growth and has a highly effective government. We also investigated pathways towards continued prolonged use, and found configurations that are consistent with empirical literature, but are not necessarily mirror images of the pathways towards graduation. One of the criticisms of IMF programs is the low track record of completion and implementation, with some scholars arguing that excessive conditionality is the root cause of the problem. The third chapter investigates issues on the completion rates of IMF programs and the degree of IMF conditionality over time. We look at the trends in completion and conditionality for the past four decades and examine whether changes in the degree of conditionality have impacted the completion rates of IMF programs. Over the 1980-2023 period, there were no significant changes in the trends of IMF completion rates. On the other hand, the average number of conditionalities declined in the mid-2000s, reflecting the Fund’s streamlining efforts. Using bivariate correlation analysis and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) models, we did not find a significant association between completion and conditionality. The last chapter investigates the effect of existing IMF programs on portfolio inflows in emerging market economies. While the IMF has claimed that its programs send positive signals to international capital markets, the empirical evidence for the presence of this so-called “catalytic effect” has been mixed. This chapter adds to the existing literature by using a novel dataset and methodology. We use Markov-Switching regression models to identify episodes of high and low portfolio inflows and investigate the relationship between the existence of IMF programs with the probability of the occurrence of these episodes. We also use an instrumental variable technique to address issues with selection bias and the endogeneity of IMF participation. The results support a kind of “stigmatic effect” wherein the presence of an IMF program increases the probability of being in a relatively low state of portfolio inflows and portfolio debt inflows. However, these programs do not necessarily cause “switches” from one state to another. Instead, the presence of an IMF program in an emerging market economy is associated with the persistence of the low state of portfolio inflows.

ISBN

9798315740100

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Available for download on Friday, May 22, 2026

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