tion ofan IMF programme on the subsequent concession ofa debt rescheduling by
commercial creditors, using a bivariate probit model to control for the endogene-
ity of the choice “IMF adoption.” If countries who adopt IMF programmes are
more likely than others to obtain a restructuring of their external debt, we could
conclude that the adoption of a Fund programme could work as a sort of signal
of a country’s “good behaviour” which is then followed by the debt rescheduling.
Our results con...rm the existence of this eaect.
We will consider the following IMF programmes, that is Stand by arrange-
ments, Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Str uctural Adjustment Facilities (SAF)
and Enhanced Structural Fund Facility (ESAF)4. These programmes were chosen
since they are the most common among IMF programmes. They are set both for
the short and the medium-term and are designed for both middle-income (Stand
by and EFF) and low-income countries (SAF and ESAF programmes). Our de-
.nition of a debt rescheduling includes commercial banks reschedulings (interest
and/or principal component).
In Section 2we provide some background to the empirical studies on the de-
terminants of both Fund arrangements and external debt repayment performance.
We then, in Section 3, brie≠y describe the main features of the theoretical model,
while Section 4 develops the empirical one. Section 5 presents the main results
and, .nally, Section 6 concludes.
4Eaective November 1999, ESAF was actually renamed Poverty Reduction and Growth Fa-
cility (PRGF).