After debt cancellations, in particular MDRI (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) debt ratios in Low Income Country dropped to historic lows. They are now getting into debt again, because of Bretton Woods Institutions (BWI) new loans, of emerging countries’ (namely China) loans, and sometimes...

This paper extends and applies principal-agent theory to the performance of donor projects. There is variation in the degree of divergence between the interests of the donor (the principal) and the recipient government (the agent). Further, the effort expended on observation of the agent is a...

We build and implement a normative procedure to allocate international aid based on equality of opportunity concerning the risk of poverty. This is an alternative to Collier and Dollar’s proposal (2001) which stresses the impact of aid on worldwide poverty reduction. The big problem with their...

UNDP Round Tables have been traditionally used to facilitate the dialogue between recipient governments, chiefly in the least developed countries (LDCs), and their main donors. In this document, written for UNDP as part of an evaluation of its Round Table process, we investigate the...

The objective of the paper is to analyze the respective impact of aid and remittances on human development as measured by infant and child mortality rates and stunting incidence. Panel data on a sample of 98 developing countries, and cross-country quintile-level data on a sample of 47 developing...

In previous papers the authors have argued that aid is likely to mitigate the negative effects of external shocks on economic growth (i.e. that aid is more effective in countries which are more vulnerable to external shocks). Recently an important debate has emerged about the possible negative...

We propose an econometric analysis of the distributive impact of trade flows, foreign direct investment (FDI), official aid and migrants’ remittances. Results suggest that FDI increases inequality, while remittances tend to reduce inequality. Trade and aid have a non-linear relationship with...