The Economic Impact of IMF and World Bank Programs in the Middle East and North Africa: A Case Study of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, 1983-2004

Harrigan, Jane; El-Said, Hamed

Abstract

This paper examines whether the economic reforms attached to IMF and World Bank policy-based lending in the Middle East and North Africa have stimulated sustained economic growth. In order to investigate this, we chose four countries to study in depth: Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and
Morocco. These were chosen as they have been put forward by both the IMF and the World Bank as successful reformers who, for prolonged periods, carried out World Bank and IMF guided economic reform programs. We examine the sources of growth during the reform period in these
four countries, looking at intensive versus extensive growth, growth in the tradables sector versus the non-tradables sector and growth caused by the reforms versus growth caused by exogenous factors. We discovered that the reform programs in all four countries were associated with spurts of economic growth, but that, apart from Tunisia, this was not sustained, with intensive growth in
the tradables sector stimulated by the reform program.

Citation

Harrigan, J., & El-Said, H. (2010). The Economic Impact of IMF and World Bank Programs in the Middle East and North Africa: A Case Study of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, 1983-2004. Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, 6(2), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.2202/1475-3693.1261

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Jul 16, 2012
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 5, 2019
• Journal: Review of Middle East Economics and Finance
• Electronic ISSN: 1475-3693
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1-25
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1475-3693.1261
• Keywords: IMF, World Bank, stabilization, structural adjustment, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt