We build upon recent literature to do several exercises to assess benefits and costs of the brain drain to Africa. Contrary to a lot of the worries expressed in the media and in aid agencies, the brain drain is probably a net benefit to the source countries. We make several arguments: (1) the...

Those involved in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) campaign routinely state Africa will miss all the MDGs. This paper argues that a series of arbitrary choices made in defining success or failure as achieving numerical targets for the Millennium Development Goals made attainment of the MDGs...

This paper does not address the issue of aid effectiveness - that is, the extent to which aid dollars actually achieve their goals - but instead focuses on best practices in the way in which official aid is given, an important component of wider debate. First, we discuss best practice for an...

We assemble a dataset on technology adoption in 1000 B.C., 0 A.D., and 1500 A.D. for the predecessors of today's nation states. We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today's national development outcomes. Although our strongest results are for...

The record of the aid agencies over time seems to indicate weak evidence of progress over time in response to learning from experience, new knowledge, or changes in political climate. The few positive results are an increased sensitivity to per capita income of the recipient (although it...