Replication Data for: Cutting trees to balance budgets: IMF programs are associated with increased deforestation

International financial institutions are increasingly expected to support environmental sustainability, yet the ecological consequences of their operations remain poorly understood. This paper investigates the environmental implications of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) lending. We first show that the IMF rarely targets forest management; in a quantitative text analysis of 35,915 conditions administered to low- and middle-income countries in the last four decades, only 34 pertain explicitly to forest management. Second, we investigate the impacts of IMF programs on annual tree cover loss between 2000 and 2020. Estimates from two-way fixed effects models show that IMF programs are, on average, associated with an increase in annual deforestation by 9.2%. Additional analyses indicate these effects are driven by fiscal policy and external sector reforms, suggesting IMF borrowers seek to consolidate fiscal spending, potentially on environmental protection, and extract economic value from natural resources. Our study thereby shows that understanding national-level environment-related outcomes requires greater attention to international-level determinants.