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Andrei Shleifer (2009) and David Skarbek and Peter Leeson (2009) offer devastating critiques of foreign aid. Following Peter Bauer's and, more recently, William Easterly's lead, they assert that if aid [...]

Under normal conditions, devoting more resources to X'S production produces more X. This follows from the nature of the physical world, which positively relates quantities of outputs to quantities of [...]

Peter Bauer was one of the greatest development economists in history. He was an advocate of property rights protection and free trade before these ideas became commonplace. He appreciated before [...]

For much of 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) looked moribund. The Fund's only loans outstanding were costly ones to low-income countries (LICs). For the first time ever, the Fund [...]

The ongoing financial crisis and a difficult international adjustment process involve a multitude of actors and forums. They all grapple with the complexities of a globalized economic and financial system [...]

This paper examines whether the major bilateral and multilateral donors distribute their aid in accordance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Aid concentration curves for monetary poverty, child malnutrition, primary school enrollments, and under-five mortality are used to assess whether aid is distributed to the poorest and most deprived countries. Major contrasts between the progressivity and regressivity of different donor's aid programs are observed. The United Kingdom and World Bank distribute around two-thirds of their concessionary aid to the low income countries. In contrast, the United States and European Commission spend the majority of their aid budgets in middle income countries. Key words--aid, millennium development goals, poverty, malnutrition

Millennium Challenge Accounts (MCA), a new foreign aid program that was proposed by the administration in March 2002, is an incentive-based approach to foreign aid used effectively by giving it only to governments demonstrating a record of good governance. The MCA does solve the problems of existing U.S. foreign aid program by selecting winners and ignoring losers.

The analysis on sustained use of International Monetary Fund resources by some developing countries, which is challenging the very existence of institution, is presented. The main purpose of the institution is to create balance of payments sustainablility.

The article discusses methods for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of development aid provided by Arab donor nations, and supports greater participation by Arab donors in ongoing international discussions on design and management of international aid.

The article supports the establishment of international taxes, levies, and fees to augment economic aid to developing nations, and the creation of an international development organization to provide management and direction. Voting formulas for organizational function and aid disbursal are also included.

A critique of World Bank procedure is presented, specifically the process of linking financial aid to recipient nation policy. A case is made for decoupling aid from national policy and creating a supranational endowment fund, which would finance research findings on development of common international goods.

The official development assistance program, Japan's foreign policy and its aims are discussed.

The World Bank Group and its three regional counterparts support a loan portfolio of $300 billion and each year give a total of $50 billion in loans to developing members. The failure rate of World Bank projects is very high, and it is clear that costless donor participation in the development banks does not exist. It is now time to ensure that incentive, the driving force behind economic behaviour, governs both Bank and client. Hidden transfers must be replaced by explicit grants and subsidies, and all aid must be fully accounted for. Poverty cannot be eliminated without institutional reforms which act as the basis for effective investment and economic growth.

The World Bank cultivates an image of contributing what the private sector is unable or unwilling to supply. The facts do not back up this image. The World Bank's mandate specifically includes displacing private sector resources, but since 1993 only 22% of resources, apart from aid transfers, have gone to countries without an international bond rating of B or higher. The World Bank presents its lending activities as market-based and concessional. In fact, both are extremely subsidized. It is now time for the World Bank Group to become the agent which facilitates the flow of private resources by forming an intellectual infrastructure that encourages productive investment.

The Agency for International Development (AID), the U.S. Government's principal dispenser of foreign economic assistance, is struggling to define its mission in the post Cold War era. AID staff and overseas presence has contracted in recent years following 'reinvention' reforms. But reinvention has not clarified the agency's mission nor protected it from powerful critics. AID's future depends on its ability to develop a mission that excites popular demand. Agency reformers promote foreign aid as a means to advance sustainable development in developing countries. But AID's sustainable development mission lacks credibility because it excludes references to reforms required in post-industrial societies. Participation of U.S. local interests in aid management and more effective promotion of familiar premises for aid (many of them consistent with the tenets of sustainable development) are essential elements of a revitalized foreign aid program.

This article takes the form of a case study, based on the experience of preparing a practical guide on gender and democracy for the United States Agency for International Development. It documents the organizational context at the time of preparation and the nature of the document thought to be most appropriate to that context: the sources of relevant ideas including literature on women and the state and women and the law; some key preliminary questions such as a justification for attention to gender in democracy and issues of local culture and religion; an illustration of how the material was dealt with; and a concluding section on lessons, comparisons and focus areas for future attention.

The Northern Ireland Economic Research Center reported that Northern Ireland's Department of Economic Development will aid companies to compensate for 'market failures,' and to enhance the competitiveness of existing companies. The decisions reflect the new models of soft aid such as the promotion of strategic development tactics, marketing, training and product development aid. These are replacing the old modes of hard aid such as capital and employment grants. The establishment of the Training and Employment Agency and the Industrial Research Technology Unit has resulted in positive alterations to organizational studies.

The world's richest governments have pledged to boost financial aid to the developing world. So why won't poor nations reap the bebefits? Because in the way stands a bloated, unaccountable [...]

When pollsters asked people, "Do you feel the amount the U.S. spends on foreign aid is too much, too little or about right?" 75 percent said, "Too much;" only 4 […]

The G-7 leaders' invitation of leading international aid organizations to their June 1996 meeting marks a need for change in how aid bodies operate. Factors that have rendered past methods obsolete include the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of private development assistance, globalization in a variety of arenas but especially information, the proliferation of market economies and open government systems, and the frequent failure of governments to measure up. New financial, policy, and knowledge partnerships are needed.

The European Parliament's political groups reacted quite positively to the Commission's proposals for the Structural Funds for 2014-2020. However, the Socialists warned straight away that they would reject provisions for [...]

The European Parliament has approved the release of a total amount of 10 million under the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF). In the plenary session on 15 June, MEPs backed [...]

The EU Social Council adopted, on 7 June, four decisions mobilising a total amount of 12.2 million under the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), providing support for workers made redundant [...]

There is good news for the countries hit hardest by the crisis: the European Parliament adopted in plenary, on 5 May in Brussels, a regulation that will make Structural Fund [...]

Lithuania is the next in line to benefit from assistance from the European Globalisation adjustment Fund (EGF). The European Commission approved, on 18 January, an application designed to help 806 [...]

The main aim of structural policy is to decrease the regional disparities within the European Union (EU). In 2004 ten new member countries joined the EU, and it is expected that this enlargement will cause strong regional disparities within the Union. For this reason the distribution of financial support by structural policy will undergo drastic changes. In this study we consider two main themes. First, convergence of the current EU Member States is empirically tested for the period 1995-2001, and the effect of the structural funds in this context is identified. Structural funds do indeed appear to have had a positive impact, and poorer countries (like Greece) appear to have caught up with the richer countries. The importance of the structural funds in this respect therefore cannot be neglected. Second, we touch on the problem of moral hazard and the substitution effect. It may be expected that receivers of structural funds in some cases are not really eligible and may therefore use the funds inefficiently. Our first and preliminary results seem to indicate that the less clean countries (or as we measure it, more 'corrupt' countries) of the current EU-15 do not gain less economic growth from the structural funds. The hypothesis that structural funds contributed to fewer interregional disparities within the current 15 European countries cannot be rejected. This may mean the intended plans of channelling a big share of the funds to the candidate countries in 2007-13 will probably contribute to higher economic growth in these countries.

After a decade of rapid increases, the flow of development assistance for health from traditional donors has stagnated in recent years. (1) At the same time, emerging economies such as [...]

A common theory in wealthier nations holds that local NGO's are the most efficient and effective deliverers of aid and social welfare to developing countries. However, an anlysis of nongovernmental organizations in northern Ghana shows that this is not necessarily so. They can be just as susceptible to corruption and factionalism as outside organizations or governments.