IMF Staff Country Reports

This paper presents an Ex Post Assessment of Longer-Term Program Engagement for Uruguay. Uruguay has had a series of Stand-By Arrangements that were treated mostly as precautionary between March 1996 and early 2002. These were viewed as a helpful seal of approval, and a vehicle for intensive IMF monitoring. The authorities undertook significant reforms during this period—notably a pension reform, a reduction in public employment, and a lengthening of wage indexation lags. However, other reforms were either not undertaken or completed with a delay.