The Social Impact of the International Monetary Fund: Structural Adjustment Programs in Latin America from 1980-2000

Abstract

This paper examines 17 Latin American countries to study the IMF’s impact on their social development. I try to determine if the funds provided by the IMF are associated with improvements in social development, as measured by the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI), health, education, and GDP per capita.

Overall, I found that the impact of IMF lending on all of the variables was measurably small, but it was also statistically significant for three of the four variables. The results were also mixed, with IMF lending having a negative impact on HDI, but positive impacts on education and GDP per capita. The impact on health was negative, but statistically insignificant. These results indicated that I had to reject my a priori hypothesis that the IMF had a positive effect on the HDI, but that I could accept my hypotheses that the IMF had a positive or no impact on the social indicators of health, education, and GDP per capita.