Replication Data for: Partisanship, protection, and punishment: How governments affect the distributional consequences of International Monetary Fund programs

How do governments allocate the burden of adjustment of reform programs sponsored by international financial institutions? While the political economy literature is ripe with theoretical arguments about this issue, we have a limited empirical understanding of the distributional effects of these programs, except for a few informative case studies. We argue that governments allocate adjustment burdens strategically to protect their own partisan supporters while seeking to impose adjustment costs upon the partisan supporters of their opponents. Using hitherto under-explored individual-level Afrobarometer survey data from 12 Sub-Saharan African countries, we employ large-N analysis to show that individuals have consistently more negative evaluations and experiences of IMF structural adjustment programs when they supported opposition parties compared to when they supported the government party. Partisan differences in evaluations are greater when governments have greater scope for distributional politics, such as in the public sector and where programs entail more quantitative performance criteria, which leave governments discretion about how to achieve IMF program targets. Negative evaluations are also more prevalent among ethnically powerless groups compared to ethnically powerful groups. These results emphasize the significant role of borrowing governments in the implementation of IMF-mandated policy measures. They also stress the benefits of reducing the number of IMF conditions in limiting the scope for harmful distributive politics.

各国政府应如何分摊国际金融机构所发起改革方案的调整负担？尽管政治经济学领域已有大量关于该问题的理论探讨，但除少数富有启发性的案例研究外，学界对这类项目的分配效应仍缺乏充分的实证认知。本文认为，各国政府会策略性地分配调整负担：一方面着力保护自身的党派支持者，另一方面则将调整成本转嫁给反对党的党派支持者。本文采用迄今尚未被充分挖掘的12个撒哈拉以南非洲国家的个体层面非洲晴雨表（Afrobarometer）调查数据，通过大样本分析（large-N analysis）证实：相较于支持执政党的民众，支持反对党的民众对国际货币基金组织（IMF）结构调整计划的评价与体验始终更为负面。当政府拥有更大的分配性政治活动空间时——例如在公共部门领域，或是当改革方案包含更多量化绩效标准、从而赋予政府在达成IMF项目目标的方式上拥有更多自由裁量权时——民众评价的党派差异会更为显著。相较于族群强势群体，族群弱势群体对IMF结构调整计划的负面评价也更为普遍。上述研究结果凸显了借款国政府在落实IMF强制推行的政策措施过程中的重要作用，同时也强调了减少IMF附加条件数量，能够有效限制有害分配性政治活动的空间。