IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13400.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aid Volatility and Poverty Traps

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-Richard Agénor
  • Joshua Aizenman

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of aid volatility in a two-period model where production may occur with either a traditional or a modern technology. Public spending is productive and "time to build" requires expenditure in both periods for the modern technology to be used. The possibility of a poverty trap induced by high aid volatility is first examined in a benchmark case where taxation is absent. The analysis is then extended to account for self insurance (taking the form of a first-period contingency fund) financed through taxation. An increase in aid volatility is shown to raise the optimal contingency fund. But if future aid also depends on the size of the contingency fund (as a result of a moral hazard effect on donors' behavior), the optimal policy may entail no self insurance.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-Richard Agénor & Joshua Aizenman, 2007. "Aid Volatility and Poverty Traps," NBER Working Papers 13400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13400
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13400.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stéphane Pallage & Michel A. Robe, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    2. Robert Lensink & Oliver Morrissey, 2000. "Aid instability as a measure of uncertainty and the positive impact of aid on growth," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 31-49.
    3. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Chattopadhyay, Pradip, 2003. "Volatility and growth in developing economies: some numerical results and empirical evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 267-295, March.
    4. Pierre‐Richard Agénor & Devrim Yilmaz, 2013. "Aid Allocation, Growth And Welfare With Productive Public Goods," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 103-127, March.
    5. Arellano, Cristina & Bulír, Ales & Lane, Timothy & Lipschitz, Leslie, 2009. "The dynamic implications of foreign aid and its variability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 87-102, January.
    6. Aghion, Philippe & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2005. "Volatility and Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199248612.
    7. Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2006. "Policy Volatility and Growth," Research Department Publications 4481, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    8. David Fielding & George Mavrotas, 2005. "The Volatility of Aid," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2005-06, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Stéphane Pallage & Michel A. Robe & Catherine Bérubé, 2006. "The Potential of Foreign Aid as Insurance," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(3), pages 1-5.
    10. Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2006. "Policy Volatility and Growth," Research Department Publications 4481, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    11. Imbs, Jean, 2007. "Growth and volatility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1848-1862, October.
    12. Ale Bulir & A. Javier Hamann, 2003. "Aid Volatility: An Empirical Assessment," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(1), pages 1-4.
    13. Stefan Koeberle & Zoran Stavreski & Jan Walliser, 2006. "Budget Support as More Effective Aid? Recent Experiences and Emerging Lessons," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6958, December.
    14. Chatterjee, Santanu & Sakoulis, Georgios & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2003. "Unilateral capital transfers, public investment, and economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1077-1103, December.
    15. Oya Celasun & Jan Walliser, 2008. "Predictability of aid: Do fickle donors undermine aid effectiveness? [‘The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 23(55), pages 546-594.
    16. Agénor, Pierre-Richard, 2010. "A theory of infrastructure-led development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 932-950, May.
    17. Anil Markandya & Vladimir Ponczek & Soonhwa Yi, 2011. "What are the links between aid volatility and growth?," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 44(2), pages 41-68, January-M.
    18. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R. & Lundblad, Christian, 2006. "Growth volatility and financial liberalization," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 370-403, April.
    19. M. Ayhan Kose & Eswar S. Prasad & Marco E. Terrones, 2005. "Growth and Volatility in an Era of Globalization," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 52(si), pages 31-63.
    20. Blackburn, Keith & Pelloni, Alessandra, 2004. "On the relationship between growth and volatility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 123-127, April.
    21. Hudson, John & Mosley, Paul, 2008. "Aid Volatility, Policy and Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2082-2102, October.
    22. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2007. "Foreign aid and economic growth: The role of flexible labor supply," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 507-533, September.
    23. Hudson, John & Mosley, Paul, 2008. "The macroeconomic impact of aid volatility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 486-489, June.
    24. Santanu Chatterjee & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2005. "Financing Public Investment through Foreign Aid: Consequences for Economic Growth and Welfare," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 20-44, February.
    25. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2007. "The Allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Evidence and a suggestive theory," Discussion Paper Series 2007_07, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Mar 2007.
    26. Philippe Aghion & George-Marios Angeletos & Abhijit Banerjee & Kalina Manova, 2005. "Volatility and Growth: Credit Constraints and Productivity-Enhancing Investment," NBER Working Papers 11349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2006. "A Theory of Infrastructure-led Development," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0640, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    28. Stefan C. Norrbin & F. Pinar Yigit, 2005. "The Robustness of the Link between Volatility and Growth of Output," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(2), pages 343-356, July.
    29. Pallage, Stephane & Robe, Michel A, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    30. Aleš Bulíř & A Javier Hamann, 2007. "Volatility of Development Aid: An Update," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(4), pages 727-739, November.
    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. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    2. Hudson, John, 2015. "Consequences of Aid Volatility for Macroeconomic Management and Aid Effectiveness," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 62-74.
    3. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2005. "The Impact of Foreign Aid on Economic Growth: Volatility of Disbursements and Distribution of Receipts," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0533, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    4. K C Neanidis & D Varvarigos, 2005. "The Impact of Foreign Aid on Economic Growth: Volatility of Disbursements and Distribution of Receipts," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 56, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2023. "The Quality of Aid for Trade Flows and Economic Complexity," EconStor Preprints 271538, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    6. Panika Jain & Samaresh Bardhan, 2023. "Energy aid volatility across developing countries: a disaggregated sectoral analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 457-483, July.
    7. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2007. "The Allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Evidence and a suggestive theory," Discussion Paper Series 2007_07, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Mar 2007.
    8. Kurt Annen & Michael Batu & Stephen Kosempel, 2014. "A DSGE-RBC Approach to Measuring Impacts of Wealth Transfers," Working Papers 1404, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    9. Annen, Kurt & Batu, Michael & Kosempel, Stephen, 2016. "Macroeconomic effects of foreign aid and remittances: Implications for aid effectiveness studies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1136-1146.
    10. Arellano, Cristina & Bulír, Ales & Lane, Timothy & Lipschitz, Leslie, 2009. "The dynamic implications of foreign aid and its variability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 87-102, January.
    11. Fahmida Khatun & Syed Yusuf Saadat & Md. Kamruzzaman, 2019. "FINANCE FOR SDGs: Addressing Governance Challenge of Aid Utilisation in Bangladesh," CPD Working Paper 125, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
    12. Boateng, Elliot & Agbola, Frank W. & Mahmood, Amir, 2021. "Foreign aid volatility and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does institutional quality matter?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 111-127.
    13. Jean-Louis COMBES & Rasmané OUEDRAOGO, 2014. "Does Pro-cyclical Aid Lead to Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? An Empirical Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201424, CERDI.
    14. Julia Cage, 2009. "Asymmetric information, rent extraction and aid efficiency," Working Papers halshs-00575055, HAL.
    15. Bulír, Ales & Hamann, A. Javier, 2008. "Volatility of Development Aid: From the Frying Pan into the Fire?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2048-2066, October.
    16. S. Guillaumont Jeanneney & S. J‐A. Tapsoba, 2012. "Aid and Income Stabilization," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 216-229, May.
    17. Neanidis, Kyriakos C. & Varvarigos, Dimitrios, 2009. "The allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Theory and evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 447-462, December.
    18. Kathavate, Jay, 2013. "Direct & Indirect Effects of Aid Volatility on Growth: Do Stronger Institutions Play a Role?," MPRA Paper 45187, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Qiaoqiao Liu & Zenggang Li, 2022. "Aid instability, aid effectiveness and economic growth," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(1), January.
    20. Martin C. Steinwand, 2015. "Foreign aid and political stability," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(4), pages 395-424, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:13400. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.