This paper assesses the impact of the steadily growing remittance flows to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Though the region receives only a small portion of the total recorded remittances to developing countries, and the volume of aid flows to SSA swamps remittances, this paper finds that...

Regressions in a number of recent papers written by staff members of the World Bank and the IMF rely on an interaction variable (IAV) to establish the effects of foreign aid on economic growth or the reduction of poverty. The common assumption in these papers is that if the coefficient of this...

This paper provides a brief and selective overview of research on the links between macroeconomic policies and poverty reduction. Using the Human Development Index as a measure of well-being, the progress made by 100 countries during 1975–98 is presented, and its association with macroeconomic...