This study aims at drawing more generalized conclusions
on the impact of IMF-news on sector returns by expanding
earlier studies investigating the impact of IMF bailouts on real
sectors during other financial crises in Mexico, Brazil, Korea,
and Russia. The results indicate that the IMF actions during
the Asian crisis play an important role in affecting sector returns.
In general, both Banks and Financials returns increase
due to almost all positive IMF-related news, while Banks
decline in case of negative IMF policy news only. Real sector
returns react less to IMF-related events and have a more mixed
performance than the financial sector: Basic Materials react the
most but only to IMF policy news and the public’s reaction to
it, while Industrials react significantly only to local authorities’
reaction to IMF actions. There is no statistically significant
change in CAR in Consumer Goods. Overall, our results show
that IMF actions tend to have smaller effect on the real sector
than the financial sector during a crisis and IMF policy actions
do not tend to turn a financial crisis into a full blown real
crisis.