Development loans, poverty trap, and economic dynamics

This paper investigates the nexus between foreign aid (in the form of loans), poverty trap, and economic development in a recipient country by using a Solow model with two new ingredients: a development loan and a fixed cost in the production process. The presence of this fixed cost generates a poverty trap. Development loans may help the country to escape from the poverty trap and converge to a stable steady-state in the long run, but only if (i) the country's characteristics, such as saving rate, initial capital, governance quality, and in particular productivity, are good enough, (ii) the fixed cost is relatively low, and (iii) loans rule is generous enough. We also show that there is room for endogenous cycles in our model, unlike the standard Solow model.