The AEL (aid effectiveness literature) studies the macroeconomic effect of development aid using cross-country or panel data econometrics. It contains about 100 papers of which 43 study whether development aid increases accumulation in the recipient country. Taking all 43 aid-accumulation...

The empirical literature explaining the driving forces behind the flows of development aid consists of (at least) 166 studies. One factor that has been analyzed in 30 of these studies is growth in the recipient country. A priori the effect may as well be positive as negative. This is an...

Good public policy needs to be evidence based. However, the evidence base is thin for many policy issues. How can policy makers best respond to such thin areas of research that are also quite likely to change over time? Our survey investigates the evolution of the econometric evidence base for...

Our study, Doucouliagos and Paldam (2008), has recently been critically discussed by Mekasha and Tarp (2011). In this paper we show that contrary to what they state, their study validates our basic analysis: Both papers confirm that the literature has shown that aid is of little economic...

The authors have previously surveyed the AEL, aid (empirical) effectiveness literature, using the technique of meta-analysis. We reached the result that the small positive effect of aid on growth found in the average study is mostly a publication selection bias. This present study concentrates...

Our study, Doucouliagos and Paldam (2008), has recently been critically discussed by Mekasha and Tarp (2011). In this paper we show that contrary to what they state, their study validates our basic analysis: Both papers confirm that the literature has shown that aid is of little economic...