The growing urbanization of poverty poses a significant challenge to governments and donors alike, particularly in Asia, which houses 60 per cent of the world's slum dwellers. Donors have been slow to respond to the urban challenge, however, both in their funding patterns and their priorities....

This paper analyses the decentralization of decisionmaking in aid-giving in a theoretical rent-seeking framework. In this analysis the root donor establishes a necessary criterion for potential recipients: good governance. The potential recipients compete in hierarchal contests for funds. The...

At the very time that professional skepticism concerning the effectiveness of foreign aid has reached new heights, donors seem to be ready to substantially increase the volume of aid they are willing to make available. This paper attempts to address this paradox by first examining the record of...

Japan has emerged in recent years as a leading donor country to African countries. At one level, Japan’s renewed assertiveness in providing foreign aid to Africa is on par with the more active approach by other donor countries. Some might argue that Japan’s motivations to lend capital and...

Much public discussion about foreign aid has focused on whether and how to increase its quantity. But recently aid quality has come to the fore, by which is meant the efficiency of the aid delivery process. This paper focuses on one process problem, the proliferation of aid projects and the...

This study is premised on the view that reports circulating in the 1990s, claiming foreign aid was in terminal crisis, were premature. Aid’s reviving fortunes are explained in terms both of a growing awareness of the uneven implications of globalization and the after-effects of the terrorist...

We address the question of whether foreign aid helps attract foreign direct investment (FDI). This could be achieved if well targeted aid removed critical impediments to higher FDI inflows. In particular, test the hypothesis that aid for education is an effective means to increase FDI flows to...

We examine both grants and net loans made to low income countries during the last two decades to understand the main reasons that motivated the behaviour of both donors and creditors. Our results point to an overall "mixed" evidence, concerning the hypotheses of defensive lending (and defensive...

This paper discusses the impact of expected foreign aid in case of catastrophic events on the level of mitigative activities in aid-receiving countries. The theoretical model shows that the anticipation of foreign aid partly crowds out preventive collective action. The crowding-out effect can...

Past research on aid and growth is flawed because it typically examines the impact of aggregate aid on growth over a short period, usually four years, while significant portions of aid are unlikely to affect growth in such a brief time. We divide aid into three categories: (1) emergency and...