IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iob/wpaper/2006002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aid effectiveness, debt relief and public finance response: evidence from a panel of HIPC countries

Author

Listed:
  • Cassimon, Danny
  • Van Campenhout, Bjorn

Abstract

Through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, substantial amounts of debt relief have been granted to a set of low-income countries as an alternative instrument of aid delivery. The theoretical (and moral) arguments in favour of debt relief are well established. However, the question whether debt relief is a more effective instrument of development assistance in practice is an empirical question. Hence, in this paper we investigate, for a panel of 28 decision point HIPC countries, the intertemporal linkages between debt relief and other fiscal variables such as current expenditure, government investment, taxation and domestic borrowing, in comparison to the effects of more traditional forms of development assistance, namely (non-debt relief) grants and concessional loans. To do so, we estimate a panel VAR and look at impulse response functions. Overall, we find that HIPC (only) debt relief impact on fiscal variables to follow fairly complex dynamics. For example, debt relief initially reduces government investment, but the effect becomes positive after two years, well outperforming other modes of aid delivery.

Suggested Citation

  • Cassimon, Danny & Van Campenhout, Bjorn, 2006. "Aid effectiveness, debt relief and public finance response: evidence from a panel of HIPC countries," IOB Working Papers 2006.02, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
  • Handle: RePEc:iob:wpaper:2006002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2143/files/Publications/WP/2006/02-cassimon-vancampenhout.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Newey, Whitney & Rosen, Harvey S, 1989. "The Revenues-Expenditures Nexus: Evidence from Local Government Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 415-429, May.
    2. Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Aart Kraay, 2005. "What Has 100 Billion Dollars Worth of Debt Relief Done for Low- Income Countries?," International Finance 0510001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Newey, Whitney & Rosen, Harvey S, 1988. "Estimating Vector Autoregressions with Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1371-1395, November.
    4. Cashel-Cordo, Peter & Craig, Steven G., 1990. "The public sector impact of international resource transfers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 17-42, January.
    5. Nancy Birdsall & Stijn Claessens & Ishac Diwan, 2003. "Policy Selectivity Forgone: Debt and Donor Behavior in Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(3), pages 409-435, December.
    6. Mr. Alexander Pivovarsky & Mr. Benedict J. Clements & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Mr. Erwin H Tiongson, 2003. "Foreign Aid and Revenue Response: Does the Composition of Aid Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2003/176, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Franco-Rodriguez, Susana & Morrissey, Oliver & McGillivray, Mark, 1998. "Aid and the Public Sector in Pakistan: Evidence with Endogenous Aid," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1241-1250, July.
    8. Mr. Peter S. Heller, 2005. "Understanding Fiscal Space," IMF Policy Discussion Papers 2005/004, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Ndikumana, Leonce, 2004. "Additionality of debt relief and debt forgiveness, and implications for future volumes of official assistance," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 325-340.
    10. Jeremy Bulow & Kenneth Rogoff, 1991. "Sovereign Debt Repurchases: No Cure for Overhang," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1219-1235.
    11. Pack, Howard & Pack, Janet Rothenberg, 1993. "Foreign Aid and the Question of Fungibility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(2), pages 258-265, May.
    12. Krugman, Paul, 1988. "Financing vs. forgiving a debt overhang," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 253-268, November.
    13. Cassimon, Danny & Vaessen, Jos, 2007. "Theory, practice and potential of debt for development swaps in the Asian and Pacific region," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 12-34, March.
    14. Daniel Cohen, 1998. "The Sustainability of African Debt," International Economic Association Series, in: Daniel Cohen (ed.), Contemporary Economic Issues, chapter 7, pages 160-181, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Danny Cassimon & Martin Prowse & Dennis Essers, 2014. "Financing the Clean Development Mechanism through Debt-for-Efficiency Swaps? Case Study Evidence from a Uruguayan Wind Farm Project," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 26(1), pages 142-159, January.
    2. Danny Cassimon & Bjorn Van Campenhout, 2008. "Comparative Fiscal Response Effects Of Debt Relief: An Application To African Hipcs," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(3), pages 427-442, September.
    3. HEPP, Ralf, 2010. "CONSEQUENCES OF DEBT RELIEF INITIATIVES IN THE 1990s," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 10(1).
    4. Feeny, Simon, 2007. "Foreign Aid and Fiscal Governance in Melanesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 439-453, March.
    5. Freytag, Andreas & Pehnelt, Gernot, 2009. "Debt Relief and Governance Quality in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 62-80, January.
    6. Marin Ferry & Marc Raffinot, 2019. "Curse or Blessing? Has the Impact of Debt Relief Lived up to Expectations? A Review of the Effects of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiatives for Low-Income Countries," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(9), pages 1867-1891, September.
    7. Johansson, Pernilla, 2010. "Debt Relief, Investment and Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(9), pages 1204-1216, September.
    8. Karim Barkat & Zouhair Mrabet & Mouyad Alsamara, 2016. "Does Official Development Assistance for health from developed countries displace government health expenditure in Sub-Saharan countries?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1616-1635.
    9. Nicolas Van de Sijpe, 2013. "Is Foreign Aid Fungible? Evidence from the Education and Health Sectors," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 27(2), pages 320-356.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iob:wpaper:2006002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hans De Backer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iobuabe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.