RESULTS: We find that austerity measures remain a core part of the organization\'s mandated policies for its borrowers: 15 of the 21 countries studied here experience a decrease in fiscal space over the course of their IMF programs. Against this fiscal backdrop, social spending floors have failed to live up to their promise. There is no streamlined definition of these floors, thus rendering their application haphazard and inconsistent. But even on their own terms, these floors lack ambition: they often do not foresee trajectories of meaningful social spending increases over time, and, when they do, many of these gains are eaten up by soaring inflation. In addition, a third of social spending floors are not implemented-a much lower implementation rate from that for austerity conditions, which the IMF prioritizes. In several instances, where floors are implemented, they are not meaningfully exceeded, thus-in practice-acting as social spending ceilings.
CONCLUSIONS: The IMF\'s lending programs are still heavily focused on austerity, and its strategy on social spending has not represented the sea-change that the organization advertised. At best, social spending floors act as damage control for the painful budget cuts: they are instruments of social amelioration, underpinned by principles of targeted assistance for highly disadvantaged groups. Alternative approaches rooted in principles of universalism can be employed to build up durable and resilient social protection systems.
结果:我们发现,紧缩措施仍然是该组织为其借款人制定的强制性政策的核心部分:在这里研究的21个国家中,有15个国家在其IMF计划过程中经历了财政空间的减少。在这样的财政背景下,社会支出楼层未能兑现他们的承诺。这些楼层没有流线型的定义,从而使它们的应用变得随意和不一致。但即使按照他们自己的条件,这些楼层缺乏雄心:他们往往没有预见到有意义的社会支出随着时间的推移而增加的轨迹,and,当他们这样做的时候,这些收益中的许多都被飙升的通货膨胀所吞噬。此外,三分之一的社会支出下限没有实施——比紧缩条件的实施率低得多,这是国际货币基金组织优先考虑的。在一些情况下,在实现楼层的地方,它们没有被有意义地超越,因此,在实践中,充当社会支出上限。
结论:国际货币基金组织的贷款计划仍然主要集中在紧缩政策上,其社会支出战略并不代表该组织宣传的巨变。充其量,社会支出下限是痛苦的预算削减的损害控制:它们是社会改善的工具,以针对处境不利群体的有针对性的援助原则为基础。可以采用植根于普遍主义原则的替代方法来建立持久和有弹性的社会保护体系。