One of the most challenging problems in developing countries such as Ghana is exchange rate management, that is, 'getting the exchange rate right' especially in the context of exchange rate misalignment. The major research and policy question is what constitutes the equilibrium real exchange...

In the study "Do elites benefit from democracy and foreign aid in developing countries" (Journal of Development Economics, 2009) Bjørnskov asks if political elites benefit from foreign aid relative to the rest of the population. He concludes that his results provide qualified support for the...

Focusing on seven bilateral donors over a 25 year period, the paper answers 4 questions related to aid allocation practice. Questions one and two examine allocation differences between donors and time periods. Questions three and four relate to changes in poverty and policy selectivity. To...

This study examines survival patterns in a large, representative panel of Ugandan nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) between 2002 and 2008. It finds no evidence that more effective or more altruistic NGOs have a greater likelihood of survival. The main determinant of survival appears to be...

We analyse the selectivity criteria used by institutional donors when they allocate funds to NGOs. A simple screening model predicts that donors who care more about efficiency will screen NGOs and concentrate their funding on those that operate accordingly while donors who care less about...

Since the late 1990s a selection on policy approach to aid was advocated such that more aid should be allocated to countries with good policies. A number of donors accepted this recommendation, including the World Bank, but there is little evidence that this has occurred. Donors, including the...

This paper investigates the determinants of the real exchange rate (RER) in Ethiopia. In particular, it assesses whether large capital inflows (e.g. foreign aid and remittances) have an impact on the RER. This empirical exercise tries to improve the current literature in a number of ways: (i)...

This paper focuses on the macroeconomic management of large inflows of foreign aid. It investigates the extent to which African countries have coordinated fiscal and macroeconomic responses to aid surges. In practice, we construct a panel dataset to investigate the level of aid 'absorption' and...

This paper uses the cointegrated vector autoregressive (CVAR) model to assess the dynamic relationship between foreign aid inflows, public expenditure, revenue and domestic borrowing in Ethiopia. It departs from the existing literature by using a unique quarterly fiscal dataset (1993-2008) and...

We propose a repeated moral hazard model with full commitment and limited punishment to study the problem of aid allocation in environments characterized by asymmetric information. The donor (principal) finances a three-period development program and the elite of the recipient country (agent),...