In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach...

In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach...

The worldwide slowdown in growth after 1975 played an important role in the debt crisis of the middle-income countries in the 1980s, the crisis of the heavily indebted poor countries in the 1980s and 1990s, and the increased public debt burden of the industrial countries in the 1980s and...

The worldwide growth slowdown after 1975 was a major negative fiscal shock; lower growth lowers the present value of tax revenues and primary surpluses and thus makes a given level of debt more burdensome. Most countries failed to adjust to the negative fiscal consequences of the growth...

The new growth literature, using both endogenous growth and neoclassical models, has generated strong claims for the effect of national policies on economic growth. Empirical work on policies and growth has tended to confirm these claims. This paper casts doubt on this claim for strong effects...