IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2005-784.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does the World Bank have any impact on human development of the poorest countries? Some preliminary evidence from Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Sumon Kumar Bhaumik

Abstract

In an attempt to better understand the impact of the World Bank on human development in poor countries, we use cross-country data on African countries, for the 1990-2002 period, to examine this relationship. The coefficient estimates of our parsimonious fixed-effects models indicate that while loans and grants of the Bank have had a positive impact on some relatively short-term indicators of health and education in an average African country, there is little evidence to suggest that such loans and grants have helped these countries to consolidate on the short-term gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Sumon Kumar Bhaumik, 2005. "Does the World Bank have any impact on human development of the poorest countries? Some preliminary evidence from Africa," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp784, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
  • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2005-784
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40170/3/wp784.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burhop, Carsten, 2005. "Foreign assistance and economic development: a re-evaluation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 57-61, January.
    2. Wallich Christine I., 1995. "What's Right and Wrong with World Bank Involvement in Eastern Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 57-94, February.
    3. Kilby, Christopher, 2000. "Supervision and performance: the case of World Bank projects," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 233-259, June.
    4. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    5. Dasgupta, Partha & Ray, Debraj, 1986. "Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(384), pages 1011-1034, December.
    6. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    7. Gilbert, Christopher & Powell, Andrew & Vines, David, 1999. "Positioning the World Bank," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(459), pages 598-633, November.
    8. Lancaster, Carol, 1999. "Aid Effectiveness in Africa: The Unfinished Agenda," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 8(4), pages 487-503, December.
    9. Baland, Jean-Marie & Ray, Debraj, 1991. "Why does asset inequality affect unemployment? A study of the demand composition problem," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 69-92, January.
    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. Thomas Ziesemer, 2016. "The Impact of Development Aid on Education and Health: Survey and New Evidence for Low‐income Countries from Dynamic Models," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 1358-1380, November.
    2. Dierk Herzer, 2019. "The long-run effect of aid on health: evidence from panel cointegration analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(12), pages 1319-1338, March.

    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. Yoojin Lim & Youngwan Kim & Daniel Connolly, 2023. "Assessing the impact of aid on public health expenditure in aid recipient countries," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(1), January.
    2. Jones, Yakama Manty, 2013. "Testing the foreign aid-led growth hypothesis in West Africa," MPRA Paper 50361, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Simović Dragana, 2015. "Project Management in Development Aid Industry – Public vs. Private," Croatian International Relations Review, Sciendo, vol. 21(72), pages 167-197, February.
    4. Gunatilake, H. & Fabella, R.V & Lagman-Martin, A., 2011. "Foreign Aid, Aid Effectiveness and the New Aid Paradigm: A Review," Sri Lankan Journal of Agricultural Economics, Sri Lanka Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA), vol. 12, pages 1-44.
    5. 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.
    6. Yakama Manty Jones, 2013. "Testing the Foreign Aid-led Growth Hypothesis in West Africa," Management Working Papers 3, Birkbeck Department of Management, revised Apr 2013.
    7. Denizer, Cevdet & Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart, 2013. "Good countries or good projects? Macro and micro correlates of World Bank project performance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 288-302.
    8. Hiroyuki Hino & Atsushi Iimi, 2008. "Aid Effectiveness Revisited: Comparative Studies of Modalities of Aid to Asia and Africa," Discussion Paper Series 218, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    9. Monica Beuran & Gaël Raballand & Julio Revilla, 2011. "Improving Aid Effectiveness in Aid-Dependent Countries: Lessons from Zambia," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 11040, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    10. Clément Bellet, 2017. "Essays on Inequality, Social Preferences and Consumer Behavior," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o, Sciences Po.
    11. Lauren E. Lopez, 2015. "Corruption And International Aid Allocation: A Complex Dance," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 40(1), pages 35-61, March.
    12. Fuentes, Raúl, 2005. "Aid, Policies and Growth: A Non-Canonical Alternative for solving This Puzzle," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Kiel 2005 14, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    13. Stijn Claessens & Danny Cassimon, 2007. "Empirical evidence on the new international aid architecture," WEF Working Papers 0026, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London.
    14. Tadesse, Tasew, 2011. "Foreign aid and economic growth in Ethiopia," MPRA Paper 33953, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Sep 2011.
    15. Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2006. "World Bank Independence: A Model and Statistical Analysis of US Influence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 224-240, May.
    16. 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).
    17. Carter, Patrick, 2017. "Aid econometrics: Lessons from a stochastic growth model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 216-232.
    18. 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.
    19. Sandy Dall'erba & Julie Le Gallo, 2008. "Regional convergence and the impact of European structural funds over 1989–1999: A spatial econometric analysis," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 87(2), pages 219-244, June.
    20. Michael Chasukwa & Dan Banik, 2019. "Institutional bypass and aid effectiveness in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-22, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Development; Health; Education; World Bank; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • P45 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - International Linkages

    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:wdi:papers:2005-784. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.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.