This Economic Brief looks at past evidence as to what extent donors' economic cycles have an effect on their aid budgets. It generally finds only a weak correlation of economic growth and aid of OECD donors between 1971 and 2008, and aid was reduced in only about half of all episodes of deep or...

The present global financial crisis is the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has impacted severely on the European economy. It has forced policy-makers in the EU and elsewhere to respond with exceptional measures to counter the depressive effects of the crisis. The crisis has...