Page 249 - Proceeding 2015

ANDRONICEANU Armenia and OHANYAN Gurgen FAMP
IMF POLICIES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON EDUCATION IN ROMANIA CCASP

The solution to surmount this issue is offered by Garuda (2000), who uses propensity scores to group
countries based on their economic performance and probability to apply for IMF financial assistance.
Furthermore, employing propensity score method in evaluation IMF program effects on employment
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
within the EU, it is found that Romania has similar pre-economic conditions, i.e. closest propensity scores
to apply for IMF programs in 2009. Meanwhile, Romania turned to the IMF in 2009 and Bulgarian

authorities abstained. This evidence reduces availability of selection bias, as those two countries had
economic conditions alike. Thus, in evaluating IMF program effects on Romanian education we employ
Bulgaria as “control group”.

In general, data on analysis of education sector include input and output variables, where input variables
are public expenditures on different levels of education and its share in GDP and public budget. Yet,
output variables illustrate the efficiency of such expenditures on education such as enrollment of students,

out-of-school children number. In this end, we have made comparison both input and output variables in
Romania and Bulgaria to understand the sway of IMF programs on Romanian education.
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest cutting budget deficit, shrinkage of public jobs and wage increase limitations. Those IMF measures on
It should be noted, that input variables have been under indirect influence of IMF measures such as

Romania during the crisis and after are comprehensively discussed in the following chapter. In order to
eliminate problems related with differences between statistical methodologies of distinct sources. We

have based just on Eurostat databases, which provide data till 2012.

5. DISCUSSION OF IMF PROGRAM EFFECTS ON EDUCATION IN ROMANIA

Romania since 2009 has signed three SBAs with IMF, where the last two ones have been declared as
3
precautionary. Due to data limitation we discuss further SBAs signed in 2009 and 2011 each respectively
with 24 month duration (see Table 2).

Particularly, the IMF officials need to review Romanian government performance on quarterly basis.
Hence, we have analyzed 16 overall reviews by the IMF staff and extracted the reforms or measures that
directly or indirectly could influence Romanian education sector.

TABLE 2 - DESCRIPTION OF ROMANIAN STAND-BY ARRANGEMENTS
Approval Date Initial End Date Revised End Date Total Access Precautionary Delayed By
05/04/2009 05/03/2011 03/30/2011 11.4 SDR mln. No
03/31/2011 03/30/2013 06/30/2013 3.1 SDR mln. Yes 3 to 6 months
Source: IMF MONA database

3 Precautionary arrangements are used when countries do not intend to draw on approved amounts, but retain the
option to do so should they need it.

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