The paper examines empirically the proposition that aid to poor countries is detrimental for external competitiveness, giving rise to Dutch disease type effects. At the aggregate level, aid is found to have a positive effect on growth of labour productivity. A sectoral decomposition shows that...

This paper examines fungibility as a possible explanation for the missing link between foreign aid and economic growth. The composition of aid plays a crucial role in determining the composition of government spending and, consequently, the magnitude of fungibility and its impact on growth....

The typical identification strategy in aid effectiveness studies assumes donor motives do not influence the impact of aid on growth. We call this homogeneity assumption into question, first constructing a model in which donor motives matter and then testing the assumption empirically.

It continues to be heavily disputed whether foreign aid promotes economic growth in developing countries. In most cross-country regressions, aid is considered effective only if it shifts recipient countries to a significantly higher and sustainable growth path. We apply an alternative approach...

Of the world's 6.7 billion people (as of 2008), 1.3 billion lived on less than $1.25 Purchasing Power Parity dollars per person per day and another 1.7 billion lived on between $1.25 and $2.50 PPP dollars (Chen and Ravallion, 2012). The scourge of absolute economic misery among billions of the...

In this paper we investigate the relationship between per capita income and foreign aid for a panel of 131 (alternatively 52) recipient countries over the period 1960 to 2006 by employing annual data and 5-year averages. Reliance on standard panel estimation techniques, such as 2-ways FE...

The typical identification strategy in aid effectiveness studies assumes donor motives do not influence the impact of aid on growth. We call this homogeneity assumption into question, first constructing a model in which donor motives matter and then testing the assumption empirically.

The typical identification strategy in aid effectiveness studies assumes donor motives do not influence the impact of aid on growth. We call this homogeneity assumption into question, first constructing a model in which donor motives matter and then testing the assumption empirically.

During recent years, new doubts about the effectiveness of international aid have emerged. One of the arguments employed to justify this sceptical view is that aid can hinder tax effort in developing countries. Nevertheless, empirical research on the aid-tax nexus is inconclusive and it shows...