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Aid, policies, and growth

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Author Info
Burnside, Craig
Dollar, David

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Abstract

The authors of this paper use a new database on foreign aid to examine the relationships among foreign aid, economic policies, and growth of per capita GDP. In panel growth regressions for 56 developing countries and 6 four-year periods (1970-93), they find that the policies that have a great effect on growth are those related to fiscal surplus, inflation, and trade openness. They construct an index for those three policies and have that index interact with foreign aid. They have instruments for both aid and aid interacting with policies. They find that aid has a positive impact on growth in developing countries with good fiscal, monetary and trade policies. In the presence of poor policies, aid has no positive effect on growth. This result is robust in a variety of specifications, which include or exclude middle-income countries, include or exclude outliers, and treat policies as exogenous or endogenous. They examine the determinants of policy and find no evidence that aid has systematically affected policies, either for good or for ill. They estimate an aid allocation equation and show that any tendency for aid to reward good policies has been overwhelmed by donors'pursuit of their own strategic interests. In a counterfactual, they reallocate aid, reduce the role of donor interests and increasing the importance of policy. Such a reallocation would have a large positive effect on developing countries'growth rates.

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Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 1777.

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Date of creation: 30 Jun 1997
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1777

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Keywords: Gender and Development Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness Economic Theory&Research Environmental Economics&Policies School Health Pro-Poor Growth and Inequality Governance Indicators Inequality Economic Theory&Research Development Economics&Aid Effectiveness

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Newey, Whitney K & West, Kenneth D, 1987. "A Simple, Positive Semi-definite, Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 703-08, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. King, Robert G. & Levine, Ross, 1993. "Finance, entrepreneurship and growth: Theory and evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 513-542, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995-1), pages 1-118. [Downloadable!]
  5. Mosley, Paul & Hudson, John & Horrell, Sara, 1987. "Aid, the Public Sector and the Market in Less Developed Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 616-41, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Robert J. Barro & Jong-Wha Lee, 1993. "International Comparisons of Educational Attainment," NBER Working Papers 4349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Frey, Bruno S. & Schneider, Friedrich, 1986. "Competing models of international lending activity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 225-245, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Maizels, Alfred & Nissanke, Machiko K., 1984. "Motivations for aid to developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 12(9), pages 879-900, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Stanley Fischer, 1993. "The Role of Macroeconomic Factors in Growth," NBER Working Papers 4565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," NBER Working Papers 3120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Weisskopf, Thomas E., 1972. "The impact of foreign capital inflow on domestic savings in underdeveloped countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 25-38, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Dani Rodrik, 1996. "Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?," NBER Working Papers 5537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Trumbull, William N & Wall, Howard J, 1994. "Estimating Aid-Allocation Criteria with Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(425), pages 876-82, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Alesina, Alberto & Baqir, Reza & Easterly, William, 1999. "Public goods and ethnic divisions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2108, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Levy, Victor, 1988. "Aid and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The recent experience," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1777-1795, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-38, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-63, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Rebelo, Sérgio, 1992. "Growth in Open Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 667, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Chang, Charles C. & Fernandez-Arias, Eduardo & Serven, Luis, 1999. "Measuring aid flows : a new approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2050, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  20. Easterly, W & Levine, R, 1996. "Africa's Growth Tragedy : Policies and Ethnic Divisions," Papers 536, Harvard - Institute for International Development.
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  21. Lawrence J. Christiano, 1989. "Understanding Japan's saving rate: the reconstruction hypothesis," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Spr, pages 10-25. [Downloadable!]
  22. Jeffrey Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Progress of Global Integration," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1733, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  23. Griffin, Keith, 1970. "Foreign Capital, Domestic Savings and Economic Development," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 32(2), pages 99-112, May.
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