This paper focuses on the macroeconomic management of large inflows of foreign aid. It investigates the extent to which African countries have coordinated fiscal and macroeconomic responses to aid surges. In practice, we construct a panel dataset to investigate the level of aid 'absorption' and...

This paper uses the cointegrated vector autoregressive (CVAR) model to assess the dynamic relationship between foreign aid inflows, public expenditure, revenue and domestic borrowing in Ethiopia. It departs from the existing literature by using a unique quarterly fiscal dataset (1993-2008) and...

During recent years, new doubts about the effectiveness of international aid have emerged. One of the arguments employed to justify this sceptical view is that aid can hinder tax effort in developing countries. Nevertheless, empirical research on the aid-tax nexus is inconclusive and it shows...

The link between foreign aid and economic growth remains a controversial issue in the literature, and a large share of the disagreement could be explained by differences in the data employed. Using GDP data from three different versions of the Penn World Table and the World Development...

This paper considers how the conditionality inherent in HIPC debt relief should be constituted to promote pro-poor policies. There are two dimensions to this. First, the extent to which the policies proposed are pro-poor. Second, the potential for releasing resources for pro-poor expenditures....

This paper provides a critical analysis of the growth regressions in Burnside and Dollar (2000). First, we analyze the relation between aid and government expenditure in a modified neoclassical growth model. We find that while good policies spur growth they may at the same time lead to...

Foreign aid inflows have grown significantly in the post-war period. Many studies have tried to assess the effectiveness of aid at the micro- and macro-level. While micro-evaluations have found that in most cases aid "works", those at the macro-level are ambiguous. This paper assesses the impact...

Comparing aid flows in the 1990s with those from the 1970s make it clear that there are now many more countries receiving what may be termed "high aid" (say in excess of 30 percent of GNP) and that there has emerged a group of countries receiving very high aid. Whilst never formally considered...

Two findings have been common in the literature on the impact of foreign aid on public sector fiscal behaviour in developing countries. The first is that aid "sticks" to higher levels of recipient government expenditure, with aggregate expenditure often rising by more than the value of the aid...

Our objective is to test the hypothesis that ai d can improve the welfare of the poor. Part of this effect is direct, if aid is targeted on the poor, and part is indirect, via the transmission channel of aid-financed public spending on social services - sanitation, education and health. This...