The notion that foreign aid harms the institutions of recipient governments remains prevalent. We combine new disaggregated aid data and various metrics of political institutions to re-examine this relationship. Long-run cross-section and alternative dynamic panel estimators show a small...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

The micro-macro paradox has been revived. Despite broadly positive evaluations at the micro and meso-levels, recent literature doubts the ability of foreign aid to foster economic growth and development. This paper assesses the aid-growth literature and, taking inspiration from the program...

Japan has an impressive history when it comes to aid, industrial policy, and infrastructure development, both as a country that saw meteoric development of its own, and as a country that has been one of the world's largest donors for decades. Looking towards an uncertain future in which...

In a recent article, Nowak-Lehmann, Dreher, Herzer, Klasen, and Martínez-Zarzoso (2012) (henceforth NDHKM) conclude that foreign aid has not had a significant effect on income, based on evidence from panel data potentially covering 131 countries over the period 1960-2006. The present study...

Does foreign aid promote aggregate economic growth? In contrast to widespread perceptions, academic studies of this question have been rapidly converging towards a positive answer. We employ a simulation approach to (i) validate the coherence of recent empirics and (ii) calculate plausible...

The global economy is passing through a period of profound change. The immediate concern is with the financial crisis, originating in the North. The South is affected via reduced demand and lower prices for their exports, reduced private financial flows, and falling remittances. This is the...

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented global crisis. The task for economic policy is to help keep people alive, enterprises afloat, and households out of poverty. The pandemic has macroeconomic dimensions. First, it affects macroeconomic stability and growth. Second, the tools of...

After a massive international campaign calling attention to the development impact of foreign debt, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is now underway. But will the HIPC Initiative meet its high expectations? Will debt relief substantially raise growth? How do we make sure...