"We examine the role of non-economic partnerships in promoting international economic exchange. Since far-sighted countries are more willing to join costly international partnerships such as environmental treaties, environmental engagement tends to encourage international lending. Countries with...

"This paper places current efforts at international economic policy coordination in historical perspective. It argues that successful cooperation is most likely in four sets of circumstances. First, when it centers on technical issues. Second, when cooperation is institutionalized - when...

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...

This paper explores whether one of the most important U.S. policies towards Africa of the past few decades achieved its desired result. In 2000, the United States dropped trade restrictions on a broad list of products through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Since the Act was...

Our empirical estimations indicate that aid-for-trade granted by OECD donors strengthens the trade relations of recipient countries with other developing countries. By focusing on South-South trade we mitigate endogeneity concerns that have plagued analyses of trade between recipients and donors...

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...