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This dissertation consists of four essays on the decision-making and the effects of international organizations. Its empirical focus is on the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The dissertation shows that political interests influence the IMF's decision-making and that IMF programs have important economic effects on sovereign creditworthiness and income inequality. Chapter 1: Buying Votes and International Organizations: The Dirty-Work Hypothesis; Chapter 2: Room for Discretion: Biased Decision-Making in International Financial Institutions; Chapter 3: Stigma or Cushion? IMF Programs and Sovereign Creditworthiness; Chapter 4: The Economics of the Democratic Deficit: The Effect of IMF Programs on Inequality

We review the literature on the political economy of international organizations (IOs). Considering IOs as products of the preferences of various actors rather than monolithic entities we focus on national politicians, international bureaucrats, interest groups, and voters. By looking into the details of decision-making in IOs the literature shows that a focus on states as the prime actors in IOs overlooks important facets of the empirical reality. Mainly focusing on empirical research, we structure the paper according to the four main actors involved and examine how they influence, use, and shape IOs. We find that IO behavior often reflects the interests of politicians, bureaucrats, and interest groups, while the impact of voters is limited. The final section discusses proposals for reforms addressing this weak representation of voter preferences.

AbstractThe post‐2015 development agenda requires improved concepts to define and measure different forms of poverty and inequality. Building on the experiences made with the Millennium Development Goals, this paper gives an overview of several possible approaches by discussing their strengths and weaknesses. National, international, relative and multidimensional concepts are considered. Arguing that the discussions on the post‐2015 agenda offer an opportunity to introduce new global measurements of progress that complement gross domestic product‐based approaches, the authors make the case for a simple yet comprehensive index as a headline indicator that could help to better inform poverty and inequality reduction policies in the post‐2015 world. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cover -- CONTENTS -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. STYLIZED FACTS AND DESCRIPTIVE EVIDENCE -- A. Trends in Globalization -- B. Globalization, Growth, and Inequality -- III. DATA AND METHOD -- A. Measures of Globalization -- B. Dependent Variables -- C. Control Variables -- D. Identification -- IV. RESULTS -- A. Growth: Main Results -- B. Inequality: Main Results -- C. Income Growth by Decile -- D. Channels -- E. Robustness -- V. THE ROLE OF DOMESTIC POLICIES -- VI. CONCLUSION -- VII. REFERENCES -- TABLES -- APPENDICES -- Appendix 1: List of Countries Included in the Analysis -- Appendix 2: Descriptive Statistics and Data Sources -- Appendix 3: Robustness Tests -- FIGURES -- Figure 1: Trends in Economic Globalization -- Figure 2: Collinearity of Globalization Indicators -- Figure 3: Cross-Country Correlations between Globalization, Growth, and Inequality -- Figure 4: Correlation of Changes in Globalization and Growth / Inequality over Time -- Figure 5: Diminishing Marginal Returns to Globalization -- Figure 6: Globalization and Inequality -- Figure 7: Income Growth by Decile - Coefficient Plot -- Figure 8: Globalization and Redistribution -- Figure 9: Globalization, Inequality, and Education Expenditure -- Figure 10: Relative Income Shares (Visualization of Table 10) -- Figure 11: Globalization and Growth: Sensitivity of Coefficients (Jackknife Test) -- Figure 12: Globalization and Inequality: Sensitivity of Coefficients (Jackknife Test) -- TABLES -- Table 1: Collinearity of Globalization Indicators -- Table 2: Growth - Main Results -- Table 3: Inequality - Main Results -- Table 4: Income Growth by Decile -- Table 5: Growth - Channels -- Table 6: Inequality - Channels -- Table 7: Market Gini and Education Spending -- Table 8: Robustness - GDP Figures from Penn World Tables -- Table 9: Robustness - Gini Indices from PovcalNet and All the Ginis.

We review the aid effectiveness literature to assess whether foreign aid given to areas of limited statehood can be expected to promote economic and social outcomes in the recipient country. We distinguish different types of aid, motives for granting it, recipient country policies and characteristics, and modalities by which aid is delivered, as these factors have been argued to influence the effectiveness of aid. In short, aid is most likely to be successful if given for non-strategic motives, and if given to recipient countries with "good" policies and democratic institutions. Fragmented aid and aid amounts that exceed the absorptive capacity of the recipient reduce the effectiveness of aid. We then compare these properties between recipients most affected by limited statehood and those least affected. This allows us to assess the relative effectiveness of aid in countries with areas of limited statehood. We conclude that on average aid given there is less likely to be effective than elsewhere.

We show how major shareholders can exploit their power over international organizations to hide their foreign-policy interventions from domestic audiences. We argue that major powers exert influence bilaterally when domestic audiences view the intervention favorably. When domestic audiences are more skeptical of a target country, favors are granted via international organizations. We test this theory empirically by examining how the United States uses bilateral aid and IMF loans to buy other countries' votes in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Introducing new data on voting behavior in the UNSC over the 1960-2015 period, our results show that states allied with the US receive more bilateral aid when voting in line with the United States in the UNSC, while concurring votes of states less allied with the US are rewarded with loans from the IMF. Temporary UNSC members that vote against the United States do not receive such perks.