IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/62290.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aid Effectiveness Disputed

Author

Listed:
  • Hansen, Henrik
  • Tarp, Finn

Abstract

There is a widespread perception among academic researchers and aid practitioners alike that empirical cross-country analysis fails to find any significant link between aid flows and growth, and that aid is successful only when associated with good policies in the recipient countries. These positions do not stand up to careful scrutiny of existing studies. In this paper, we offer a re-examination of the literature on the aid-savings, aid-investment, and aid growth relationships, and a comparative appraisal of more recent research contributions. Using an analytic framework for evaluating the empirical work, a coherent and positive picture of the aid-growth link emerges. Aid works, even in countries hampered by an unfavorable policy environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 1999. "Aid Effectiveness Disputed," MPRA Paper 62290, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62290
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62290/1/MPRA_paper_62290.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Mosley & John Hudson & Sara Horrell, 1992. "Aid, the public sector and the market in less developed countries: A return to the scene of the crime," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(2), pages 139-150, March.
    2. anonymous, 1995. "Does the bouncing ball lead to economic growth?," Regional Update, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Jul, pages 1-2,4-6.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(1), pages 121-144, May.
    4. Gupta, K L, 1970. "Foreign Capital and Domestic Savings: A Test of Haavelmo's Hypothesis with Cross-Country Data: A Comment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(2), pages 214-216, May.
    5. Barro, Robert J & Mankiw, N Gregory & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1995. "Capital Mobility in Neoclassical Models of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 103-115, March.
    6. Halevi, Nadav, 1976. "The Effects on Investment and Consumption of Import Surpluses of Developing Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(344), pages 853-858, December.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    8. Griffin, Keith B & Enos, J L, 1970. "Foreign Assistance: Objectives and Consequences," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 313-327, April.
    9. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    10. Newlyn, Walter T, 1973. "The Effect of Aid and Other Resource Transfers on Savings and Growth in Less-Developed Countries: A Comment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 83(331), pages 867-869, September.
    11. Charles C. Chang & Eduardo Fernández-Arias & Luis Serven, 1998. "Measuring Aid Flows: A New Approach," Research Department Publications 4146, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Papanek, Gustav F, 1973. "Aid, Foreign Private Investment, Savings, and Growth in Less Developed Countries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(1), pages 120-130, Jan.-Feb..
    13. Howard White, 1992. "What do we know about aid's macroeconomic impact? An overview of the aid effectiveness debate," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(2), pages 121-137, March.
    14. Heller, Peter S, 1975. "A Model of Public Fiscal Behavior in Developing Countries: Aid, Investment, and Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 429-445, June.
    15. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    16. Stoneman, Colin, 1975. "Foreign capital and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 11-26, January.
    17. Chenery, Hollis B & Eckstein, Peter, 1970. "Development Alternatives for Latin America," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(4), pages 966-1006, Part II, .
    18. Areskoug, Kaj, 1973. "Foreign-Capital Utilization and Economic Policies in Developing Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(2), pages 182-189, May.
    19. Xavier Sala-I-Martin, 1997. "Transfers, Social Safety Nets, and Economic Growth," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(1), pages 81-102, March.
    20. Sherman Robinson, 1971. "Sources of Growth in Less Developed Countries: A Cross-Section Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 85(3), pages 391-408.
    21. Khan, Haider Ali & Hoshino, Eiichi, 1992. "Impact of foreign aid on the fiscal behavior of LDC governments," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1481-1488, October.
    22. Voivodas, Constantin S., 1973. "Exports, foreign capital inflow and economic growth," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 337-349, November.
    23. 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 616-641, September.
    24. Griffin, Keith, 1973. "The Effect of Aid and Other Resource Transfers on Savings and Growth in Less-Developed Countries: A Comment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 83(331), pages 863-866, September.
    25. Levy, Victor, 1987. "Does Concessionary Aid Lead to Higher Investment Rates in Low-Income Countries?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(1), pages 152-156, February.
    26. 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.
    27. Snyder, Donald, 1990. "Foreign Aid and Domestic Savings: A Spurious Correlation?," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 175-181, October.
    28. Papanek, Gustav F, 1972. "The Effect of Aid and other Resource Transfers on Savings and Growth in Less Developed Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(327), pages 934-950, September.
    29. Singh, Ram D, 1985. "State Intervention, Foreign Economic Aid, Savings and Growth in LDCs: Some Recent Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 216-232.
    30. Charles C. Chang & Eduardo Fernández-Arias & Luis Serven, 1998. "Measuring Aid Flows: A New Approach," Research Department Publications 4146, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    31. Mosley, Paul, 1980. "Aid, Savings and Growth Revisited," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 42(2), pages 79-95, May.
    32. Boone, Peter, 1996. "Politics and the effectiveness of foreign aid," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 289-329, February.
    33. Feyzioglu, Tarhan & Swaroop, Vinaya & Zhu, Min, 1998. "A Panel Data Analysis of the Fungibility of Foreign Aid," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 12(1), pages 29-58, January.
    34. Leamer, Edward E, 1985. "Sensitivity Analyses Would Help," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(3), pages 308-313, June.
    35. Masson, Paul R & Bayoumi, Tamim & Samiei, Hossein, 1998. "International Evidence on the Determinants of Private Saving," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 12(3), pages 483-501, September.
    36. Gupta, Kanhaya L, 1975. "Foreign Capital Inflows, Dependency Burden, and Saving Rates in Developing Countries: A Simultaneous Equation Model," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 358-374.
    37. Over, A Mead, Jr, 1975. "An Example of the Simultaneous-Equation Problem: A Note on "Foreign Assistance: Objectives and Consequences."," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 751-756, July.
    38. 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.
    39. Massell, Benton F & Pearson, Scott R & Fitch, James B, 1972. "Foreign Exchange and Economic Development: An Empirical Study of Selected Latin American Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 54(2), pages 208-212, May.
    40. Levy, Victor, 1988. "Aid and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The recent experience," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1777-1795, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aid; Cross-Country Output; growth;

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • P45 - Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - International Linkages

    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:62290. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Joachim Winter). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.