Transformations  in
Business & Economics

How to Make IMF-Supported Programmes Credible. A Tripartite Body Versus the ‘Letters of Intent’
Bruno S. Sergi

ABSTRACT. The so-called tutelage policy pursued by the IMF during the past decades in many parts of the world has triggered debates on how to reconcile the IMF mission with country ownership. In addition to a meagre country ownership in economic policy choices, many scholars have censured the IMF not to fit into the agenda of economic efficiency and they have proposed tough treatments, including the extreme view of drawing the IMF to a close. In the meantime, the IMF Managing Director, Horst Köhler, has launched a new consultative process and the conditionality policy has been revised in September 2002. Yet the main foundation of past policies – i.e. the ‘letters of intent’ – remains in place, and this paper makes the case of a fresh tripartite body to magnify the joint responsibilities of domestic policymakers, experts and international officials in the formulation of credible domestic economic policies.

KEYWORDS: transition economics, Eastern and Central Europe, International Monetary Fund, conditionality policy, macroeconomic policy.