IMF Program Design and Growth: Is Optimism Deliberate? Is it Defensible?
利用1989-2002年间94个IMF项目的数据，比较了项目设定的增长、通胀等目标与实际结果，发现增长和通胀目标通常过于乐观，而财政目标越激进增长表现越好，货币目标越激进则增长越差。
Abstract: IMF supported programs include key objectives (such as growth, inflation, and current account adjustment) and the intermediate policy targets (such as monetary and fiscal policies) needed to achieve these objectives. In this paper, we use a new, large dataset, with information on 94 programs between 1989 and 2002, to compare programmed objectives and policy targets to actual outturns, and report two broad sets of results. Regarding objectives, we find that outturns typically fell short of expectations in the areas of growth and inflation, but were broadly in line with the programmed external current account objectives. Regarding the intermediate policy targets, programmed policies were generally more ambitious than policy outturns, and we document the extent of this difference. Second, focusing on growth, we examine the relationship between objectives and policy targets and find a difference in the way ambitious monetary and fiscal targets affected the achievement of the growth objective. Regarding fiscal targets, even when they were missed, if they were more ambitious, the performance on growth was better. On the other hand, more ambitious monetary targets, tended to reduced growth performance.