IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/23026.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating Aid Effectiveness in the Aggregate: A critical assessment of the evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Carl-Johan, Dalgaard
  • Henrik, Hansen

Abstract

The purpose of the present evaluation study is to discuss the empirical studies that attempt to estimate the impact of foreign aid on economic growth. The study draws on a previous evaluation study (Dalgaard and Hansen, 2009), which introduces the general econometric methodology involved in making assessments about the aggregate impact of aid. In order to fully benefit from the discussion below it is therefore advisable for readers without prior knowledge of econometrics to review the material discussed in Dalgaard and Hansen (2009). The present study provides insights into the following questions 1. What are the central mechanisms linking aid to growth? 2. How much should one expect from aid a priori? 3. What are the best available estimates of the impact from total aid on economic growth in income per capita? 4. Does aid modality matter?

Suggested Citation

  • Carl-Johan, Dalgaard & Henrik, Hansen, 2010. "Evaluating Aid Effectiveness in the Aggregate: A critical assessment of the evidence," MPRA Paper 23026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:23026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/23026/1/MPRA_paper_23026.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2011. "Life expectancy and economic growth: the role of the demographic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 99-133, June.
    2. Anke E. Hoeffler, 2002. "The augmented Solow model and the African growth debate," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(2), pages 135-158, May.
    3. Angeles, Luis & Neanidis, Kyriakos C., 2009. "Aid effectiveness: the role of the local elite," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 120-134, September.
    4. Annen Kurt & Kosempel Stephen, 2009. "Foreign Aid, Donor Fragmentation, and Economic Growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, August.
    5. Easterly, William, 1999. "The ghost of financing gap: testing the growth model used in the international financial institutions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 423-438, December.
    6. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Günther Fink, 2014. "Disease and Development Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1355-1366.
    7. C-J. Dalgaard & H. Hansen, 2001. "On Aid, Growth and Good Policies," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6), pages 17-41.
    8. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    9. Minoiu, Camelia & Reddy, Sanjay G., 2010. "Development aid and economic growth: A positive long-run relation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 27-39, February.
    10. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    11. Michael A. Clemens & Steven Radelet & Rikhil Bhavnani, 2004. "Counting chickens when they hatch: The short-term effect of aid on growth," International Finance 0407010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Quamrul H. Ashraf & Ashley Lester & David N. Weil, 2009. "When Does Improving Health Raise GDP?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 157-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. David Roodman, 2007. "The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-Country Empirics," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 255-277, May.
    14. Areendam Chanda & Carl‐Johan Dalgaard, 2008. "Dual Economies and International Total Factor Productivity Differences: Channelling the Impact from Institutions, Trade, and Geography," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(300), pages 629-661, November.
    15. Francesco Caselli & James Feyrer, 2007. "The Marginal Product of Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 535-568.
    16. William Easterly & Ross Levine & David Roodman, 2004. "Aid, Policies, and Growth: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 774-780, June.
    17. Caselli, Francesco & Esquivel, Gerardo & Lefort, Fernando, 1996. "Reopening the Convergence Debate: A New Look at Cross-Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 363-389, September.
    18. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Carl-Johan Dalgaard, 2006. "Cross-Border Flows of People, Technology Diffusion and Aggregate Productivity," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_006, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    19. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    20. Areendam Chanda & Carl-Johan Dalgaard, 2003. "Dual Economies and International Total Factor Productivity Differences," Macroeconomics 0305002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. repec:bla:obuest:v:64:y:2002:i:2:p:135-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Pritchett, Lant H. & DEC, 1994. "Desired fertility and the impact of population policies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1273, The World Bank.
    23. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    24. Bazoumana Ouattara & Eric Strobl, 2008. "Aid, Policy and Growth: Does Aid Modality Matter?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 144(2), pages 347-365, July.
    25. Carl-Johan, Dalgaard & Henrik, Hansen, 2009. "Evaluating Aid Effectiveness in the Aggregate: Methodological Issues," MPRA Paper 23025, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    26. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Erickson, Lennart, 2009. "Reasonable Expectations and the First Millennium Development Goal: How Much Can Aid Achieve?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1170-1181, July.
    27. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carl-Johan, Dalgaard & Henrik, Hansen, 2009. "Evaluating Aid Effectiveness in the Aggregate: Methodological Issues," MPRA Paper 23025, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Olufemi Saibu & Felix Obioesio, 2017. "Foreign Aid, Fiscal Optimality and Economic Growth in Nigeria," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 67(4), pages 85-99, October-D.
    3. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2013. "The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid to Women's Equality Organizations in the MENA: Does Aid Promote Women's Political Participation?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-074, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2009. "Aid and Growth: Have We Come Full Circle?," Discussion Papers 09-22, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    3. Angeles, Luis & Neanidis, Kyriakos C., 2009. "Aid effectiveness: the role of the local elite," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 120-134, September.
    4. Sarantis Kalyvitis & Thanasis Stengos & Irene Vlachaki, 2012. "Are Aid Flows Excessive or Insufficient? Estimating the Growth Impact of Aid in Threshold Regressions," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 59(3), pages 298-315, July.
    5. Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2012. "Aid, Growth and Devolution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1723-1749.
    6. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2009. "Aid and Growth: Have We Come Full Circle?," Discussion Papers 09-22, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    8. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2016. "What Is the Aggregate Economic Rate of Return to Foreign Aid?," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 30(3), pages 446-474.
    9. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Axel Dreher & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2012. "Does foreign aid really raise per capita income? A time series perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 288-313, February.
    10. Roland Hodler & David S. Knight, 2012. "Ethnic Fractionalisation and Aid Effectiveness," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(1), pages 65-93, January.
    11. Patrick GUILLAUMONT, 2009. "Aid effectiveness for poverty reduction: macroeconomic overview and emerging issues," Working Papers P05, FERDI.
    12. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Mr. Lennart Erickson, 2006. "Solow Versus Harrod-Domar: Reexamining the Aid Costs of the First Millennium Development Goal," IMF Working Papers 2006/284, International Monetary Fund.
    13. 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.
    14. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D. & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Axel Dreher, 2009. "In Search for a Long-run Relationship between Aid and Growth: Pitfalls and Findings," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 196, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Erickson, Lennart, 2009. "Reasonable Expectations and the First Millennium Development Goal: How Much Can Aid Achieve?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1170-1181, July.
    16. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2016. "What Is the Aggregate Economic Rate of Return to Foreign Aid?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(3), pages 446-474.
    17. Tierney, Michael J. & Nielson, Daniel L. & Hawkins, Darren G. & Roberts, J. Timmons & Findley, Michael G. & Powers, Ryan M. & Parks, Bradley & Wilson, Sven E. & Hicks, Robert L., 2011. "More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1891-1906.
    18. Saima Liaqat & Temesgen Kifle & Mohammad Alauddin, 2016. "Aid-Macroeconomic Policy Environment- Growth Nexus: Evidence from Selected Asian Countries," Discussion Papers Series 565, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    19. Ferreira, I.A.R. & Simoes, M.C.N., 2013. "Aid And Growth: A Comparative Study Between Sub-Saharan Africa And Asia," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 113-132.
    20. Kilby, Christopher, 2005. "World Bank lending and regulation," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 384-407, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; foreign aid;

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    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:pra:mprapa:23026. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.