IMF Programs and Global Deforestation: 35,915 Conditions and 20-Year Tree Loss

Timon Forster (Harvard Dataverse) provides replication data analyzing 35,915 IMF conditions and annual tree cover loss across low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2020. The dataset evaluates the environmental impact of international financial lending through quantitative text analysis and two-way fixed effects modeling.

Use Cases

• Correlating IMF fiscal policy reforms with annual tree cover loss percentages
• Analyzing the frequency of environmental keywords in 35,915 IMF conditionality texts
• Modeling the impact of external sector reforms on national deforestation rates

Strengths

• Includes 35,915 coded IMF conditions spanning four decades
• 20-year longitudinal coverage of tree cover loss (2000-2020)
• Links specific fiscal policy reforms to ecological outcomes

Limitations

• Geographic bias toward low- and middle-income countries
• Sparse direct labeling with only 34 conditions explicitly targeting forest management

Provenance

Source

Timon Forster, Harvard Dataverse

Collection Method

Quantitative text analysis and statistical modeling of IMF and environmental records

Time Range

2000-2020

Freshness

Covers tree cover loss through 2020; metadata last updated March 2026.

Geography

Global low- and middle-income countries