A large, untapped reservoir of potential partnerships between private financial institutions (banks, asset managers, private equity firms, etc.) and aid donors remains to be fully exploited. Banks, private equity and asset management firms are important parts of a broad set of private actors in...

This paper investigates a claim repeatedly made, but never tested, that aid donors herd. To do so it originally uses methodologies developed in finance to measure herding on financial markets, and adapts them to aid allocation. The motivation for studying herding is to improve our understanding...

While natural resource revenues ought to enable development, past experiences with the 'Paradox of Plenty' have shown that mineral and oil wealth often represents a curse rather than a blessing, inducing slower growth and higher levels of poverty. Many resource rich countries have high poverty...

Aid ineffectiveness, fragmentation, and volatility have already been highlighted by scholars and OECD studies. Far fewer studies have been devoted to another problem of capital flows: herding behaviour. Building upon a methodology applied to financial markets, where herding is a common feature,...

This paper presents stylised facts about development aid and capital flows to developing countries. It compares their volumes and volatilities and finds that foreign aid is not the major source of finance for these countries any more, though not for all regions. The expansion of private flows...