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The effectiveness of foreign aid in stimulating economic development is a topic of intense debate in the scientific community and among policy analysts. Numerous empirical studies are devoted to investigating the impact of foreign aid on the economic growth/development of recipient countries. This study reviews the literature relevant to this debate using the bibliometric data of scholarly papers in the Scopus database. Our intention is to identify the trends of publications, their geographical distribution and the most influential journals, authors and articles in this field of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Labour government's new White Paper promises great changes in the British aid programme: re-focusing aid on poverty reduction, partnerships replacing one-sided conditionalities, and policy coherence so that the broad gamut of British policies in areas as diverse as agriculture, trade and investment are in line with the needs of international development. However, the Paper is stronger on broad policy statements than detail as to how to implement these strategies. Moreover, an examination of the history of British aid shows continuity to have been greater than change. Both Labour and Conservative governments have presided over cuts in UK aid, and so instead pointed to the high quality of British aid. But efforts to improve aid quality have been impeded by the use of aid to achieve political and commercial objectives. Whether the White Paper represents a break with the past cannot be determined by the Paper's brave rhetoric, but only by the future actions of the Department for International Development. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the perspective of the Independent Group on British Aid (IGBA) 1997 White Paper on International Development. Measures for which the IGBA has been campaigning since the publication of "Real Aid: A Strategy for Britain," in 1982; Significance of the White Paper; Advice from the group regarding the White Paper on International Development.

This paper empirically models aid allocation to four African countries—Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Tanzania—using 1968–1999 time series data. The econometric method employed allows for the joint determination of aid to these countries and for recipient-specific coefficients. It is hypothesised that aid to these countries has been determined by a diverse set of determinants, ranging from their developmental needs or requirements through to donor commercial, political and strategic interests. A special interest of the paper is whether policy regimes have impacted on the amounts of aid received by these countries. Results indicate that they have for all four countries, although the direction of influence differs among them. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Marcel Mauss' Gift Theory in conjunction with Qin Yaqing's Relational Theory to Chinese foreign aid. It proposed that this approach allows to conceptualise Chinese aid to Africa as a continuous gift cycle initiated in Bandung and has been going uninterrupted till today. The paper argues through the language of reciprocity and relationality, China symbolically affords the recipient status in a way that Northern aid does not. The real existing power asymmetries between China and Africa do not per se translate into unlimited influence as China can never be sure of reciprocity and is obliged to keep giving continuously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread perception among academic researchers and aid practitioners alike that empirical cross-country analysis fails to find any significant link between aid flows and growth, and that aid is successful only when associated with good policies in the recipient countries. These positions do not stand up to careful scrutiny of existing studies. In this paper, we offer a re-examination of the literature on the aid–savings, aid–investment, and aid–growth relationships, and a comparative appraisal of more recent research contributions. Using an analytic framework for evaluating the empirical work, a coherent and positive picture of the aid–growth link emerges. There is a robust aid–growth link even in countries hampered by an unfavourable policy environment. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent economic relations including foreign assistance scenario in Africa show expansion of China and India as emerging bilateral partners, competing with traditional countries in Europe and North America. The results of this paper found that the relationship of China and India with Zimbabwe has resulted in several challenges including increasing resource‐backed debt burden, exploitation of the natural resources, and flouting of constitutional, environmental, and labor provisions. The paper recommends that the Zimbabwean government must demand loans and investments that are contracted under clear terms and conditions, with parliamentary oversight and public scrutiny to avoid abuse by the elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Billions of dollars continue to be provided in foreign aid each year. However, few scholarly studies have examined whether the outcomes from foreign aid interventions are sustained after donor funding has ceased. This paper examines current approaches to assessing this issue before arguing that a realist evaluation approach is ideally suited to understand why and how sustained outcomes are—or are not—achieved. It contributes to the existing literature by presenting three new frameworks to examine the sustainability of outcomes in international development as well as some Context‐Mechanism‐Outcome statements. Implications for governments, communities, households and donor/implementing organisations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One branch of the aid effectiveness literature (AEL) analyzes conditional models where aid effectiveness depends upon a conditioning variable z. The leading candidates for z are a good policy index and aid itself, so that the model has an aid squared term. In this paper, meta-analysis techniques are used (i) to determine whether the AEL has established the said interaction terms, and (ii) to identify some of the determinants of the differences in results between studies. We find no support for conditionality with respect to policy, nor with respect to aid itself. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) give aid to Africa a new emphasis. Yet aid flows to Africa have trended downward over the last decade, and as a consequence more Africans now live in poverty. This is especially true of Sub-Saharan Africa. Any progress towards the main MDG target of halving the number of people living in poverty clearly requires more aid. It also requires a better understanding of what drives aid volumes to Africa and precisely how these flows impact on African economies. This paper examines trends in official aid to Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, over the period 1960 to 2002, highlighting falls in aid since the early 1990s. It concludes with consideration of future challenges for aid to Africa. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the development effects of official aid is crucial to building a better bridge between research and policy. This paper reviews the current evidence regarding the impact of aid on growth and poverty reduction, and develops a new narrative. In the light of this narrative, the paper then examines aid trends, focusing on the regions of sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific. The paper then turns to recent discussion of new and innovative sources of development finance and considers how research has influenced the policy debate through a recent World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU–WIDER) study for the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. The paper concludes that aid broadly works, that poverty would be higher in the absence of aid, and that the shortfall in aid during the 1990s has, by implication, made it more difficult to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Hence, a considerable catch-up in aid and other development finance flows is now necessary if poverty is to be substantially reduced by 2015. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The positive impacts of Aid for Trade (AfT) have been well examined on various aspects such as trade, trade liberty, inward foreign direct investment (FDI), infrastructure and so forth. However, the environmental effects of AfT have never been examined, while the environmental impact of foreign aid is already confirmed in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that investigated the connection between AfT and the quality of the environment in recipient countries. Using data from 100 countries from 2003 to 2019 with system generalised method of moment (GMM) estimator, our research results confirmed that AfT has a negative impact on the environmental quality of recipient countries, and we offer further explanations about this. However, the negative effect of AfT on environmental quality can be varied depending on the institutional quality and level of economic development of recipient countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to estimate China's net foreign aid from 2001 to 2013 as compared with net official development assistance (ODA) figures, which the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) customarily uses. First, a practical definition to capture China's foreign aid activities as a proxy for China's ODA was proposed. Second, both net and gross disbursements of China's foreign aid were estimated. Third, the results were compared with DAC members' ODA; China's donor ranking has moved up from 16th in 2001 to 6th in 2012 and 2013. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international donor community has grave concerns about the effectiveness of aid to countries it classifies as ‘fragile states’. The impact of aid on growth and poverty reduction and the ability to efficiently absorb additional inflows is thought to be significantly lower in these countries compared to other recipients. This paper examines this issue and suggests that a while a number of fragile states can efficiently absorb more aid than they have received, a number receive far more aid than they can efficiently absorb from a perspective based purely on per capita income growth. Policy recommendations are provided. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses an aid disaggregation approach to examine the impact of different aid modalities on the fiscal sector of the aid-recipient country. It uses time-series data on different types of development aid (project aid, programme aid, technical assistance and food aid) for Uganda, an important aid recipient in recent years, to estimate a model of fiscal response in the presence of aid which combines aid heterogeneity and endogenous aid. The empirical findings clearly suggest the importance of the above approach for delving deeper into aid effectiveness issues since different aid categories have different effects on key fiscal variables—an impact that could not be revealed if a single figure for aid were employed. Project and food aids appear to cause a reduction in public investment whereas programme aid and technical assistance are positively related to public investment. The same applies for government consumption. A negligible impact on government tax and non-tax revenues, and a strong displacement of government borrowing are also found. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture as an introduction to the UNU-WIDER Special Issue. Beginning in the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and will continue under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which have even more ambitious targets. The paper also assesses some of the concerns associated with the 'Paris-style' aid modalities, and discusses major challenges for the future global development agenda. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © 2015 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that whether aid receipts are permanent or temporary is an important yet overlooked determinant of the fiscal management of foreign aid. I present a theoretical framework that shows that permanent aid and temporary aid differently affect the recipient governments' choice between taxes and debt issuance. Empirically, I assess how the fiscal deficit responds to permanent aid and temporary aid in a panel of sub‐Saharan African aid‐recipient countries. Results show that while permanent aid leads to higher deficit, temporary aid reduces the deficit. The different responses of government spending to permanent aid and temporary aid help explain this pattern. Results provide important policy implications for the design of foreign aid programmes to developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this brief paper—an abridged version of the paper presented at the 1996 DSA Conference—I have outlined a sceptical view of the idea of institutional development, particularly as it has applied to the development of NGOs—both intermediary and service delivery NGOs. An alternative and beneficiary-biased definition of institutional development is proposed. The practical implications for the application of this view are examined both from the point of view of donors and funded NGOs. The paper draws upon my experience of working with NGOs in Bangladesh, India and East Africa over the last three years. It also incorporates comments by representatives of UK NGOs who attended the ODA-BOND-CDS Workshop Institutional Strengthening of Southern NGOs: What role for Northern NGOs?, held at the University of Wales, Swansea, in July 1996. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent UK White Paper makes an admirable commitment to the idea of ‘partnership’, as the keystone of a new aid relationship with countries committed to poverty reduction and good governance. The concept is a difficult one, however, open to multiple interpretation. Genuine participation means joint ownership, with mutual rights and obligations; and it implies a contractual relationship, with procedures for redress in case of default. Other donors, notably the EU, have travelled this road with mixed success and much back-sliding. Can DFID learn from their experience? Can it devise its own institutional innovations to build true partnership? © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploration of the perception and practice of participation, particularly in evaluation, elicited a range of values expressed by respondents along the aid chains of three bilateral donors with programmes in Ethiopia. The paper is developed from doctoral fieldwork, which sought to understand the mechanisms that constrain or enable participation. It raises three issues arising from analysis using a 'shared mental models' framework: differential values, ability to access and utilise information and conceptual (and physical) proximity/distance. During the research period (2004-2005), Ethiopia was a pilot country for aid harmonisation and these findings have implications for the congruence agenda (harmonisation and alignment) of the New Aid Architecture. The paper calls for a deeper understanding of the role that values and contextual information play in development management practice. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aid [Official Development Assistance (ODA)] is under pressure as fiscal constraints mount in OECD countries following the 2008-2009 global financial and economic crisis. The arguments in favour of ODA commitments from donor countries have been articulated by several writers over the years but have consistently been challenged. This paper briefly and critically assesses the main arguments in favour of, and against, continuing substantial international aid programmes and makes a distinction between arguments relating to the short-term and to the long-term. The long-term is considered in the context of the cases for and against sustained ODA programmes. The short-term is discussed in the context of potential adjustments in ODA volumes because of economic decline, reduced tax revenue and public expenditure cuts in OECD countries. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's official development assistance (ODA) has been increasing rapidly and will continue to do so. Korea is one of the few countries which have successfully transitioned from a recipient to a donor. It became a member of DAC (development assistance committee), OECD in November 2009. Korea's ODA policy, along with its growth in quantity, is at a crossroads for the enhancement of its quality. Discussions and debates are going on regarding the reforms in Korea's ODA activities, and this paper examines key issues raised. It first reviews the past and present of Korea's ODA, and identifies major characteristics including a low ODA/GNI ratio, a high percentage of concessional loans compared to grants, a high portion of tied aid, regional bias and a relatively large number of recipients. The paper argues that those characteristics arise from a lack of consensus on some fundamental issues like the objective of ODA, positioning of Korea's ODA as an emerging donor and the nature of aid to North Korea. We also argue that a shift of ODA policy is required to promote reform, based on a thorough reflection on the role of ODA in the alleviation of poverty and promoting sustainable development in developing countries, rather than serving as an economic tool. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the efficiency of public sector expenditures and foreign aid at achieving social sector outcomes in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Efficiency is estimated using a Stochastic Production Function (SPF) approach and panel data since 1990. A second stage of the analysis examines the determinants of efficiency. Results indicate that the efficiency of aid and public sectors at improving life expectancy has deteriorated during the 1990s but efficiency at improving school enrolments has increased. Higher levels of governance are associated with higher efficiency. There is also evidence to suggest that efficiency is lower in SIDS, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the changing aid relationship between the European Union (EU) and Africa since the early 2000s, emphasising the existence of a paradox: on the one hand, the EU has been preoccupied with improving the quality of its aid; on the other hand, it has failed to fully take into account the voice of the recipients in the design of the Country Strategy Papers (CSPs). The failure to promote local ownership is due to the excessive preoccupation of the European Commission with showing that it is able to commit and spend money quickly and to the new emphasis on ensuring increased coordination and complementarity with the Member States, which results in a reduced space for negotiations with recipient countries. More controversial are the conclusions on the EU's contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the issue of whether countries that have higher levels of social capital, and/or are more egalitarian, are more generous in terms of donating foreign aid. The empirical results suggest that in countries with a more equal distribution of income, aid allocations by the government are higher, but donations to non-government aid organisations by the private sector are lower. There is a positive correlation between the level of social capital and aid allocated by both the government and the private sector. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the fiscal response literature. By appropriately incorporating asymmetric policy preferences, it derives a model that the literature has long been searching for. It proceeds by discussing the implications regarding the results from previous studies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between public sector borrowing and foreign development aid. It is concerned specifically with the public sector borrowing requirement net of aid, questioning the assumption that aid and this type of borrowing are substitutes for one another. After looking at the public sector budget constraint and various conditions under which aid might lead to an increase in this borrowing, the paper surveys the empirical results of literature on aid and public sector fiscal behaviour. It finds that the results of a number of studies are consistent with aid leading to increases in this borrowing. Further investigation, in the form of econometric analysis of panel data, also points to this outcome. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing Aid argues that aid should be reallocated in favour of poor countries with good policies. This argument is based on a model in which poverty depends on growth, and growth on aid, the impact of aid being higher in countries with good policies. So-called ‘poverty-efficient’ aid allocations are thus calculated, which are shown to be at odds with those of bilateral donors. There are a number of theoretical and empirical shortcomings in this work. First, aid can affect poverty through channels other than growth. Second, what constitutes ‘good policies’ is debatable. Third, the empirical estimates are very sensitive to changes in model specification and sample. This paper critically reviews these three issues and finds the poverty-oriented aid reallocations implied in Assessing Aid to be an unreliable guide to policy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This UNU-WIDER special issue of the Journal of International Development comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality. While the topic of aid effectiveness has been examined in this journal and elsewhere, the focus on how well development assistance to countries and non-governmental organizations promotes gender equality and empowers women is relatively new. This special issue is the first to marshal quantitative evidence and case studies on several themes: (1) macroanalyses of aid effectiveness and gender equality; (2) the determinants of aid for gender equality and women's empowerment; and (3) gender issues related to aid for education, health, land administration, fragile states and climate finance. © 2016 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the distribution of aid to the social sectors between 2009 and 2011 using aid concentration curves. Its key findings are four-fold. First, despite the stated objectives of donors, total aid disbursements are broadly neutral, favouring neither the most deprived nor relatively well-off countries. Second, the pattern of social sector aid disbursements follows total aid. Third, the aid allocation patterns of bilateral and multilateral donors differ, with multilaterals donors generally being more focused on the poorest countries. Finally, the distribution of aid for health and population is more progressive than that for education or other social sectors. © 2015 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper returns to the question of what is the correct structural form for the relationship between aid, other financial flows, and economic growth rates, using a cross-section approach and -- for the first time -- data for the entire 1980s as well as the 1960s and 1970s. For the 1980s the aggregate partial regression coefficient of aid on growth emerges, for the first time, as positive and Gust) significant, although this result does not survive the partitioning of the sample into sub-groups. It remains obvious that the effect of aid on growth is country-specific, and in the later part of the paper we test a new approach under which aid effectiveness passes through a cycle, first increasing and then diminishing as a country's stage of economic development alters. If this approach is accepted (and the initial results, with an informal test, are promising) the overall cross-section relationship between aid and growth, abstracting from other influences, will be neutral in most periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4), held in Busan, South Korea drew the largest number as well as the most diverse group of participants ever. This paper examines the shift towards a new global development cooperation paradigm at the Busan HLF-4; the new global partnership that emerged from Busan; and what South Korea brought to the global discourse on development cooperation as an emerging donor. Although it is premature to argue that a new paradigm was established at Busan, there was a clear political momentum for a shift from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness, a change that was advocated and promoted particularly by new actors such as South Korea. The Busan HLF-4 and the post-Busan process have highlighted the global role of new actors, with South Korea exemplifying through its own experience how aid can help bring about development, contributing to the global discourse on development cooperation and playing a bridging role between traditional and emerging donors. The changing dynamics of the world including the global financial crisis and climate change suggest that the global challenges are different from what had been expected when the HLF process and Millennium Development Goals were begun in the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, we recommend that global development cooperation discourse and activities that had been led by traditional Western donors need to find more effective ways of incorporating new actors and different modalities of development cooperation because the global challenges we face are grave. New development partners can bring to the table lessons, energies and capacities deriving from their own dramatic success in alleviating poverty and attaining development and their visibility as global development actors. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the East-Central European countries were provided significant external capacity building assistance to help their emergence as donors of foreign aid. This paper aims to map these capacity development programmes and identify where they have helped and what challenges remain for the new donors. The main conclusion is that although capacity building has been instrumental in building organisational structures, working procedures and training staff, deeper underlying problems such as low levels of financing, lacking political will, the need for visibility and low staff numbers continue to hinder the new international development policies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores income and consumption smoothing patterns among the member countries of each of the CFA zones-the CEMAC and the WAEMU-during the period 1980-2005. I find that for the CEMAC, about 24 per cent of shocks to GDP are smoothed through the standard channels ( i.e. capital market, credit market and remittances). On the other hand, I find that 66 per cent of shocks are smoothed via foreign aid from France, and 6 per cent via central bank contributions, while reserves pooling provides no shock smoothing. For the WAEMU, I find that only 22 per cent of shocks are smoothed through the standard channels, while about 50 per cent are smoothed via foreign aid from France, 5 per cent via central bank contributions, and no smoothing via reserves pooling. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's official aid programme is non‐transparent and poorly understood. The paper compares development finance from China and the Organization for Economic Co‐operation Development (OECD) generally and through the examination of two cases of Chinese development cooperation in Africa. These cases illustrate a major argument of the paper: that the lion's share of China's officially supported finance is not actually official development assistance (ODA). China does provide finance that meets the definition of ODA, but this is relatively small. Export credits, non‐concessional state loans or aid used to foster Chinese investment do not fall into the category of ODA. China's cooperation may be developmental, but it is not primarily based on official development aid. This suggests that the institutions established at the OECD to develop and apply standards for foreign aid (the Development Assistance Committee) may not be the right ones to govern these growing ties. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does one model fit all when it comes to the determinants of IMF programs? Certainly claims have been made by the IMF that capital account crisis (CAC) countries are discernibly different in terms of the characteristics that lead them to borrow from it, while other research has claimed that it is only Asian economies that are different from the rest. This paper sets out to examine these issues. It tests various forms of a fairly conventional model to see whether some forms better fit certain groups of countries than others. It then uses the favoured models to estimate the probability of countries having an IMF arrangement. In particular it examines countries that have been identified by the Fund as CAC countries, but it also looks at a number of comparator countries. The findings suggest that there are some differences between low income and middle income countries. Pressures in the foreign exchange market are significant for the latter but not for the former. The paper also discusses differences between regions and within regions. Broadly speaking the findings confirm that Asian economies around the time of the 1997/1998 crisis tended to turn to the IMF for financial support more quickly than would have been anticipated on the basis of the existing best-fitting models. The paper also discusses the implications of the findings for policy and for the reform of the IMF. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between indicators of governance and per capita foreign aid in a cross-section of seven PICs. Controlling for poor economic growth, foreign exchange shortage and small size, a fixed-effects model correcting for AR (1) errors is tested for the period 1996–2004 that incorporates five measures of governance. The findings here confirm that voice and accountability, rule of law and corruption are negatively correlated with per capita foreign aid. However, regulatory quality and government effectiveness are positively associated with per capita foreign aid. Some policy implications are drawn. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous aid effectiveness research often claims that foreign aid has been unsuccessful in increasing growth rates. This result could be due either to methodological weaknesses, or to genuine aid efficiency losses. Empirically, the author finds that once the best available techniques are employed, aid has a significant but moderate average effect on growth over the period 1970–2001. A promising explanation of why the estimated returns to aid are not larger is that bilateral aid had no significant effect on growth during the Cold War (pre-1990), but had a significant and sizeable effect thereafter. In contrast, multilateral aid seems to have had sizeable and significant effects throughout. These results imply that the negative conclusions drawn by earlier research should be interpreted in their proper historical context, rather than as a necessary condemnation of current aid effectiveness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to a series of articles that review the EU's engagement with a number of regional groupings of developing countries. It provides the context for the following studies by reviewing the response that the European Commission has made to the demands for increased effectiveness in its administration of the EU's collective aid policy and its evolving role in achieving coordination, complementarity and coherence across EU development policy. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If development assistance targeted at specific sectors is not used as intended, aid is said to be fungible. While fungible aid is in general perceived as being less effective than aid used as specified, this has not been formally tested. This paper attempts at filling this gap and hence, tries to assess to what extent fungibility is something donors should be concerned about. Country-specific estimates of fungibility are obtained for 57 aid-recipient countries, suggesting that sectoral aid is indeed fungible on average. These estimates are then incorporated into an empirical model of aid and economic growth. I do not find any evidence of non-fungible sectoral aid working better than fungible aid. Then, I focus on sectoral aid to ‘pro-poor’ government expenditure sectors to assess the effect on infant mortality. While the results indicate that non-fungible aid is welfare improving, this is not robust to small changes in the specification. My results suggest that the concept of fungibility may be too narrow and should possibly not be the most central concern when aid is debated or given. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many donors have come to view selectivity in aid allocation—particularly towards countries with good governance—as the key for improving aid effectiveness. This position draws support from research according to which the success of policy reforms depends exclusively on domestic political economy factors. This finding has recently been questioned, however. This paper makes an original contribution to the literature with its attempt to identify the determinants of compliance with World Bank conditionality by employing publicly available data which evaluate a country's compliance directly. Our analysis suggests that poor compliance is not exclusively determined by exogenous factors, which the World Bank cannot influence, but is also a consequence of poor policy design. Better design of reform programmes is essential for greater aid effectiveness. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important feature of aid to developing countries is that it is given to the government. As a result, aid should be expected to affect fiscal behaviour, although theory and existing evidence is ambiguous regarding the nature of these effects. This paper applies techniques developed in the ‘macroeconometrics’ literature to estimate the dynamic linkages between aid and fiscal aggregates. Vector autoregressive methods are applied to 34 years of annual data in Ghana to model the effect of aid on fiscal behaviour. Results suggest that aid to Ghana has been associated with reduced domestic borrowing and increased tax effort, combining to increase public spending. This constructive use of aid to maintain fiscal balance is evident since the mid-1980s, following Ghana's structural adjustment programme. The paper provides evidence that aid has been associated with improved fiscal performance in Ghana, implying that the aid has been used sensibly (at least in fiscal terms). Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a contribution to the literature on aid and growth. Despite an extensive empirical literature in this area, existing studies have not addressed directly the mechanisms via which aid should affect growth. We identify investment as the most significant transmission mechanism, and also consider effects through financing imports and government consumption spending. With the use of residual generated regressors, we achieve a measure of the total effect of aid on growth, accounting for the effect via investment. Pooled panel results for a sample of 25 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1970 to 1997 point to a significant positive effect of foreign aid on growth, ceteris paribus. On average, each one percentage point increase in the aid/GNP ratio contributes one-quarter of one percentage point to the growth rate. Africa's poor growth record should not therefore be attributed to aid ineffectiveness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, the government of Ghana and its development partners agreed on an aid package dubbed the multi-donor budgetary support (MDBS), which would ensure continuous flow of aid to finance the government's poverty related expenditures. This paper examines the MDBS, specifically focusing on how it overcomes the problems of tied aid and other project support. It concludes that the MDBS is innovative and could work in Ghana, but it would need trust and a well-designed, coordinated effort on the part of the government of Ghana and its development partners. Second, its effectiveness would depend crucially on measures to help reduce the debt burden, so that the government would not be compelled to use aid inflows to service its debt. Finally, the MDBS could be more effective if it did not have to operate alongside other project support. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comprises a brief review of current debates around the potential benefits and drawbacks of the proposed International Finance Facility (IFF). The IFF's main strength is clear: it recognizes the urgent need for significantly larger and more predictable aid flows, and suggests a financial mechanism able to deliver such flows within existing political constraints. However, several aspects of the proposal have the potential to exacerbate current aid ineffectiveness and inequality in both the short and longer term. These factors include the IFF's governance structure; the ‘extra layer’ of conditionality added by the IFF; the potential sharp decline in aid flows after the IFF's initial phase; and the detraction of attention from other important global agendas. More work on developing innovative mechanisms to deliver social protection and basic services to poorly-governed or conflict-ridden areas is required, as are more courageous actions on the part of the UK and other rich countries. Otherwise, the IFF could mean mortgaging the future well-being of 900 million hard-to-reach poor people in order to achieve—or come closer to achieving—the MDGs today. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have found evidence to suggest that aid's effectiveness on growth has improved. Yet the debate on aid and domestic savings is still inconclusive and aid fungibility continues to be particularly contentious. One of the problems with much of the earlier literature examining the relationship between aid and savings (or aid-consumption) is that the relationship is not well embedded in a convincing theoretical framework. Although recent developments in fiscal response models have been made, the methodology applied when testing the model empirically is still not convincing. In this paper we use an alternative theoretical setting and start from a ‘normal income’ perspective that consumption and savings are driven by life cycle/permanent income factors. Using a panel setting, the model is tested on a sample of developing countries. We found limited support for life cycle/permanent income drivers but did find that changes in the policy environment, for instance stabilisation programmes, may have been influential. The hypothesis that aid has been fungible in the pre-1980 era could not be rejected. However, for the post 1980 period, where policy reforms were common, aid inflows did not seem to have leaked to finance consumption contrary to the views of both the right and the left questioning the utility of foreign aid. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses recent issues and possible future directions of Japan's official development assistance (ODA). While Japan remains one of the world's largest donor nations, given its prolonged economic stagnation and mounting public sector debt, the Japanese government is under increasing public pressure to reduce ODA budgets and to use ODA in more explicit pursuit of Japan's own economic and political interests. Internationally, Japan continues to attract criticism for its emphasis on infrastructure-related projects and for its restrained willingness to participate in multilateral partnerships. This paper argues that Japan can meet these domestic and international challenges by developing a coherent national strategy for ODA, broadly designed to enhance effectiveness, accountability and transparency. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the hypothesis that aid effectiveness can be linked to ‘good policies’ and thus that aid, if it is to have maximum impact, should be directed at countries following good policies. This is an idea which we have considerable sympathy with in principle and have built upon in the past. Indeed at one level it is almost a truism and yet in practice we find little empirical evidence in support of it when we restrict good policies to mean free market policies. ‘Good policies’ appear to matter in stimulating growth, but they do not appear to impact on aid effectiveness. Unlike much of other recent work the analysis is of a simultaneous system of equations of which growth is just one. The results suggest a complex interaction between macroeconomic variables and good policies, but it also suggests the need to widen our definition of good policies to increase both the theoretical and empirical relevance of the hypothesis. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the economic analyses and popular rhetoric surrounding the debt relief initiatives of Jubilee 2000www.jubilee2000uk.org and the World Bankwww.worldbank.org. It is pointed out that simplistic calls to ‘drop the debt’ may be counter-productive. There is no point in just demonizing debt. It has to be asked if debt cancellation is a particularly effective use of scarce aid resources. A serious look at historical evidence is required. In particular we consider the views of William Easterly on the adverse effects of continuing waves of debt relief on the governments of impoverished countries. We provide a brief empirical analysis in a panel data set using fixed effects estimation. Although our results are not consistent with Easterly's, many of the points that he and others have raised cannot simply be set aside. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing importance of donor countries operating outside of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) challenges the existing international aid architecture. In particular, non-DAC donors are suspected to provide aid solely based on self-interest without caring about recipients' need and merit. In this paper, we empirically investigate the aid allocation of one major non-DAC donor, Brazil. We find that Brazil's development cooperation is still predominantly shaped by historic and cultural ties to the Lusophone world and Latin America, while broader political and economic motives play a negligible role. To some extent, Brazil also takes recipients' need and governance into account. This broadly corroborates previous results for China and India, strengthening the conclusion that non-DAC donors are not as different from DAC donors regarding their aid motives as one might suspect. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]