Evaluation of Fiscal Adjustment in IMF-Supported Programs: Some Comments

It is a pleasure to comment on Marcelo Selowsky's presentation and the report on fiscal adjustment by the IMFs Independent Evaluation Office. The report sets a high standard for work of this kind. It is comprehensive, careful, and balanced in its judgments. The reader gets a sense of the interaction between IMF staff and the government of the country in adjusting fiscal adjustment programs to events both foreseen and unforeseen at the time of the initial program. This is a very different picture than one gets from, for example, Joseph Stiglitz's book on globalization and one with much greater verisimilitude and supporting evidence