The publication of the Assessing Aid report of the World Bank in 1998 has stimulated the debate on the future of development aid and aid policies. This collection contains a number of studies that aim to contribute to this debate. In this introduction we put the discussion on the future of...

<title>A<sc>bstract</sc> </title> We use primary survey data to analyse the relationship between trade credit and customer switching in the context of trade transactions between wholesalers and retailers in the Tanzanian rice market. Results reveal a negative relation of trade credit and customer switching, that is,...

This article investigates whether the Chilean banking reforms of the 1980s have contributed to reducing market imperfections in Chilean financial markets in the late 1980 and early 1990s. To analyse this issue, patterns of investment and its finance for different types of firms are studied,...

This article argues that the development of the financial system of the recipient country is an important precondition for FDI to have a positive impact on economic growth. A more developed financial system positively contributes to the process of technological diffusion associated with FDI. The...

The World Bank report Assessing Aid assumes that an inflow of aid, above a certain level, starts to have negative effects. In this analysis we empirically test this assumption. We find evidence for negative returns to aid at high levels of aid inflows. However, the results are sensitive to both...

This article contributes to the literature on aid and economic growth. We posit that uncertainty, measured as the instability of aid receipts, will influence the relationship between aid and investment, how recipient governments respond to aid, and will capture the fact that some countries are...

We examine the effect of business group affiliation on corporate investment behaviour in India. More specifically, we test whether group affiliation reduces financing constraints for the affiliated firms. We use a data set containing 694 listed Indian companies for the 1989-97 period. We...

Is development best achieved by going for growth, or does specific attention need to be paid to directly improving human welfare? In contrast to the Human Development Reports of the UNDP, the World Bank has stressed the growth approach. Recent work has reinforced this position by arguing that...

This paper analyses the performance of state-owned business groups in China. Group affiliation can be important for economic policy evaluation since the Chinese government promotes the formation of business groups as a first step in the process of reforming state enterprises into modern...