The paper examines empirically the proposition that aid to poor countries is detrimental for external competitiveness, giving rise to Dutch disease type effects. At the aggregate level, aid is found to have a positive effect on growth of labour productivity. A sectoral decomposition shows that...

It continues to be heavily disputed whether foreign aid promotes economic growth in developing countries. In most cross-country regressions, aid is considered effective only if it shifts recipient countries to a significantly higher and sustainable growth path. We apply an alternative approach...

The fact that increasing importance is being attached to foreign trade under the new Chinese leadership must not be mistaken for automatic expansion of the importation of foreign goods. Foreign trade will, as before, have only a complementary function in the economic development of China. For...

Japan's metamorphosis from a less developed country to one of the world's most important industrial nations was closely connected with increasing foreign pressures. Where did they result from and what will be their consequences for the country's economic policy?

We argue that donors could improve the effectiveness of foreign aid by pursuing complementary and coherent non-aid policies. In particular, we hypothesize that aid from donors that are open to immigration has stronger growth effects than aid from closed donors. We estimate the aid-growth nexus...