A basic assumption in the economic literature is the one of diminishing marginal returns to labour. However, theoretical studies on knowledge and labour specialization assume that an increase in the knowledge investment embodied in the human capital of workers raises the marginal product of...

This paper investigates cost and profit efficiency of German hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure,and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs nor outputs of the production process. We conduct a...

This paper analyses the impact of aid flows on governance. Using an instrumental variable approach and a large country sample, we find that aid has a negative rather than a positive influence on governance. This outcome is robust to various model specifications.

This article investigates whether China’s foreign aid is particularly prone to political capture by political leaders of aid-receiving countries. Specifically, we examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the political leaders’ birth regions and regions populated by the ethnic group...

This study evaluates the Philippines' absorptive performance for foreign aid, particularly during the six-year period 2003 to 2008, and compare this to that of the previous period, 1986 to 1988. We observe that the country's capacity to absorb foreign aid has declined during the period under...

Statistics on the distribution of ODA loans show that the local government sector is the smallest direct recipient of this funding source. While it has been observed that the amount of ODA grants and the number of ODA grant projects have been declining over the years, several factors could...

We assess empirically whether foreign official development assistance (ODA) has been effective in alleviating HIV/AIDS epidemics, which figures prominently among the Millennium Development Goals. We employ a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach to identify the treatment effect of ODA...

What determines the foreign aid effort of donor countries? We review the existing literature on donors' aid budgets and examine which of the suggested variables robustly determine aid effort, measured as Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a share of gross national income. More...

This paper discusses shifts in development assistance for health (DAH) since 1990, analyses the nature of the current distribution of funding, and considers future implications. Based on Jamison et al. (1998) and Frenk and Moon (2013), we introduce an essential functions framework, which...