We evaluate the long-run effects of a decentralized approach to economic development, called community driven development (CDD), a prominent strategy for delivering foreign aid. Notably we revisit a randomized CDD program in Sierra Leone 11 years after launch. We estimate large persistent gains...

How well do countries cope with the aftermath of natural disasters? In particular, do international financial flows help buffer countries in the wake of disasters? This paper focuses on hurricanes (one of the most common and destructive types of disasters), and examines the impact of hurricane...

We examine the effects of aid on growth--in cross-sectional and panel data--after correcting for the bias that aid typically goes to poorer countries, or to countries after poor performance. Even after thiscorrection, we find little robust evidence of a positive (or negative) relationship...

An optimal linear world income tax that maximizes a border-neutral social welfare function provides a drastic reduction in world consumption inequality, dropping the Gini coefficient from 0.69 to 0.25. In contrast an optimal decentralized (i.e., within countries) redistribution has miniscule...

Die internationale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit kann die Digitalisierung in ihrer Vielfalt nutzen, um ihre Ziele besser und schneller zu erreichen. Mit der Digitalisierung sind aber auch Risiken im Bereich Datenschutz, Arbeitswelt oder Zugang zum Internet verbunden. Wer profitiert von der...

This study examines the claim that the AIDS epidemic will slow the pace of economic growth. We do this by examining the association, across fifty-one developing and industrial countries for which we were able to assemble data, between changes in the prevalence of AIDS and the rate of growth of...

In a multiperiod investment framework, firms with high expected growth earn higher expected returns than firms with low expected growth, holding investment and expected profitability constant. This paper forms cross-sectional growth forecasts, and constructs an expected growth factor that yields...

The literature on aid and growth has not found a convincing instrumental variable to identify the causal effects of aid. This paper exploits an instrumental variable based on the fact that since 1987, eligibility for aid from the International Development Association (IDA) has been based partly...