The paper explores the relationships between economic freedom on the one side and development aid and IMF credit as approximation for conditional aid on the other side. After a short review of current literature on the issue of economic development, economic freedom, aid, and IMF credit, the paper develops a simple panel regression model to evaluate the relationship between “economic freedom” as dependent variable and “aid” and “IMF credit” as independent variables. The estimation is based upon data taken from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators and the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom. In contrast to previous research, our results allow the rejection of the hypothesis that IMF credit increases economic freedom and that aid is not contributing to economic freedom. The estimation results suggest that, firstly, aid is positively correlated with economic freedom, and secondly, that IMF credit is negatively correlated with economic freedom. Taking IMF credit as proxy for conditional aid, we conclude that for the period of observation it could not be shown that countries can be forced to economic freedom by aid conditions.
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Paper provided by Halle Institute for Economic Research in its series IWH Discussion Papers with number
8-06.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid O19 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations P10 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - General
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008.
"The curse of aid,"
Journal of Economic Growth,
Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
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Simeon Djankov & José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2005.
"The Curse of Aid,"
Economics Working Papers
870, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
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