Conditionality and consent: A design for measuring public response to IMF programme reviews in Africa
Keywords:
International Monetary Fund, conditionality, public opinion, Afrobarometer, research design, AfricaAbstract
Purpose. The International Monetary Fund’s effects on African budgets, health systems and labour markets are well documented, and a smaller literature measures what publics think of the Fund itself, either cross-sectionally or through survey experiments. What no study establishes is whether a real, dated Fund decision moves citizens’ evaluations of their own government, because programme participation is endogenous to the economic conditions that also move public opinion, and no survey asks respondents about the Fund. This article identifies a source of variation that removes the selection problem and reports a census of the opportunities it creates.
Methods. Afrobarometer country fieldwork runs for two to seven weeks and the Fund’s Executive Board acts on specific dates. Where a Board date falls inside a fieldwork window, respondents interviewed before the decision and respondents interviewed after it differ in exposure to the announcement and in nothing else: same country, same government, same instrument, same sampling frame, same season, separated by days. We match every African arrangement and review Board date between 2019 and 2026 against 26 individually verified Afrobarometer fieldwork windows in Rounds 8 to 10.
Findings. Three Board dates fall inside a fieldwork window, all in Round 9. Sierra Leone’s fifth Extended Credit Facility review was completed on 27 June 2022, inside a window running from 13 June to 9 July. Zambia’s Extended Credit Facility was approved on 31 August 2022, inside a window running from 3 August to 7 September. Mozambique’s first Extended Credit Facility review concluded on 21 November 2022, inside a window running from 30 October to 20 December. A further four windows miss a Board date by four days or fewer.
Implications. The design’s value lies ahead rather than behind. Afrobarometer’s Round 11 is in the field with a target of 40 countries while roughly nineteen African states hold active Fund arrangements, so the coincidences can be anticipated from the published Board calendar instead of reconstructed from it. We set out the identification strategy, the threats to it and the tests that address each, and specify the analysis in advance.
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