Description

This paper studies ho w IMF lending affects countries’ b onds maturity. Debt maturity wa s claimed to be one of the causes of the crisis of recent years: To o much short - term debt would be the seed of self - fulfilling crisis. In turn, one of the goals of the IMF interventions is to prevent crises and to alleviate their effects once they occur. I find evidence that, on average, IMF interventions reduce countries’ debt maturity which would be a non - desirable effect. However, I also find evidence that the final effect depends on countr ies’ fundamentals. The IMF would make countries borrow at longer terms (or reduce less the maturity) when the fundamentals are relatively weak.