International nancial markets are far from perfect. Because of problems related to contract enforcement borrowers often end up being rationed; the lenders tend to constrain the amount lent ex ante in order to motivate the borrowers to ful l their obligations and not default ex post. In this paper...

Of the dozen or so issues on the agenda when the Group of Seven held its annual meeting in Cologne in June, 1999, few captured the attention of the world as much as debt relief for the poorest and most indebted nations. In the past half-decade, wide-ranging and active support has developed for...

International development cooperation has evolved since the 1960s. The effectiveness of aid is still topical, but studies have not paid adequate attention to the relationship between sectoral aid, politics, institutions, and aid effectiveness in fragile states. Using data from 2002 to 2020, this...

This paper examines whether foreign aid in education has a significant effect on growth. We take into consideration the heterogeneous nature of aid as well as the heterogeneity of aid recipients - we disaggregate the aid data into primary, secondary and higher education, and run separate...

In the run up to the Hong Kong (HK) Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), growing attention has been paid to the needs of developing countries, especially the least developed countries (LDCs) many of whom face deep and persistent poverty and indebtedness. Judging from the...

In this paper I investigate the effects of recent debt relief initiatives such as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative of 1996 on resource flows to developing countries. Focusing on a sample of low-income countries, I concentrate on the following questions. First, is the...

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. We find that the total amount of transfers to HIPCs, as compared to non-HIPCs, have been increasing with their...

This paper empirically examines the foreign aid-FDI nexus. There appears to be a notion asserting that foreign aid plays a catalytic role in stimulating private capital inflows. The attempt in this paper is to examine the possible catalytic or deterring effects of foreign aid on FDI inflows with...

How well do countries cope with the aftermath of natural disasters? In particular, how well do international financial flows buffer economic losses from disasters? This paper focuses on hurricanes (one of the most common and destructive types of disasters), and examines the impact of hurricane...