XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

The IMF’s treatment towards Argentina and Brazil during financial negotiations for their first adjustment programs, 1958-64

• In Event: Historical Struggles to (Re)Shape the Brazilian State from Outside and Within: Budget, Bureaucracy, and Policies

Abstract

The IMF has a central role in global financial governance as the world’s leading crisis lender. Its practice of conditional lending – conditioning loans on the implementation of economic policy adjustments – is the primary lever by which the institution interacts with and influences the policy choice of member countries and has been a key topic of interest to scholars and public opinion. However, empirical evidence about the economic and (geo)political determinants of IMF lending behaviour remains inconclusive, and no model that explains IMF policies has been identified. My research moves beyond panel analysis to focus on financial negotiations for the first IMF programmes in Argentina and Brazil in the early post-war period. It seeks to understand why negotiations achieved distinct objectives: Argentinean officials cooperated and complied with IMF policies, whereas their Brazilian counterparts hesitated. Using qualitative and automated text analysis, this paper analyses the hypothesis about if a differential IMF treatment could help to explain these distinct outcomes. This paper contributes to historical studies on IMF-Latin America relations and the broader literature in international policy economy about the IMF policies.

Author

• Fernanda Oliveira, Geneva Graduate Institute