This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous...

While a political consensus has emerged to increase aid flows to Sub-Saharan Africa, empirical studies of the effectiveness of aid in stimulating growth and reducing poverty have yet to yield conclusive results. The present paper takes a different approach. Using the standard neoclassical growth...

The notion that foreign aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) are complementary sources of capital is conventional among governments and internationalcooperation agencies. This paper argues that the notion is incomplete. Within the framework of an open economy Solow model we show that the...

The micro-macro paradox has been revived. Despite broadly positive evaluations at the micro and meso-levels, recent literature has turned decidedly pessimistic with respect to the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth. Policy implications, such as the complete cessation of aid to...

This paper is a study of Danish aid policy from the early 1960s to 1995. It includes (i) a review of officially stated aims and criteria, (ii) a descriptive analysis of actual behaviour in international comparative perspective, (iii) a review of the theoretical and empirical aid allocation...

This paper considers the relationship between external aid and development in Mozambique from 1980 to 2004. The main objective is to identify the specific mechanisms through which aid has influenced the developmental trajectory of the country and whether one can plausibly link outcomes to aid...

The macroeconomic rationale for aid relates to its ability to supplem­ent savings, foreign exchange and government revenue, thus contributing to ­growth. This processes presumes a simple ­Harrod-Domar context in which growth is driven by physical capital formation. ­However, the...

This paper (i) traces the historical origins of foreign aid, (ii) investigates tren­ds in the volume, composition, allocation and quality of aid flows, and (iii) reviews the empirical literature on aid allocation. The paper concludes that, historically, aid has served a multitude of objectives....

This paper investigates the marginal productivity of investment in the world’s poorest economies. The aim is to estimate the return on investments financed by foreign aid as well as by domestic resource mobilization, using crosscountry aggregate data. In practice the return on both investment...

Foreign aid looms large in the public discourse; and international development assistance remains squarely on most policy agendas concerned with growth, poverty and inequality in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. The present review takes a retrospective look at how foreign aid has...