The title of this post is an economics and public health pun in very poor taste. But the story behind it is fairly unsavoury too.

Two academics, David Stuckler at Cambridge University and Sanjay Basu at Yale recently looked into the effects of the IMF's policy impacts on public service reform in the former Soviet Union, using tuberculosis as an indicator. Their full results are here, but here's the bottom line:

After correcting for confounding variables, as well as potential detection, selection, and ecological biases, we observed that participating in an IMF program was associated with increased tuberculosis incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates by 13.9%, 13.2%, and 16.6%, respectively. ... read more »

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Posted on 18 August, 2008 - 18:31

It turns out that the International Monetary Fund is ever diligent with its payments. Here's something I got from their director, who wanted to make sure I was dead before paying $5.7 million to Mr Robert Water.

So now you know where all the money goes. ... read more »

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Posted on 21 December, 2006 - 17:29