This paper assesses the impact of the steadily growing remittance flows to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Though the region receives only a small portion of the total recorded remittances to developing countries, and the volume of aid flows to SSA swamps remittances, this paper finds that...

The volume of foreign aid has increased during the last four decades, albeit with interruptions in certain years. Over time, the major recipients have changed: while the share of aid to Asia has diminished since the 1980s, that destined for sub-Saharan Africa has grown. There is some evidence...

Are improvements in growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the mid-1990s sustainable? What types of growth strategies contribute the most to reducing poverty? This paper examines these questions in four stages. First, it explores the factors contributing to the post- 1995 improvement in...

The paper uses a unique database covering 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries between 2000 and 2007 to study the determinants of the allocation and composition of flows across countries, as well as channels through which private capital flows could affect growth. In our sample,...

The paper uses a unique database covering 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries between 2000 and 2007 to study the determinants of the allocation and composition of flows across countries, as well as channels through which private capital flows could affect growth. In our sample,...

The World Bank and the IMF have adopted a debt sustainability framework (DSF) to evaluate the risk of debt distress in Low Income Countries (LICs). At the core of the DSF are empirically-based thresholds for each of five different measures of the debt burden (the “debt threshold...

We develop a model to study the macroeconomic effects of public investment surges in low-income countries, making explicit: (i) the investment-growth linkages; (ii) public external and domestic debt accumulation; (iii) the fiscal policy reactions necessary to ensure debt-sustainability; and (iv)...

In several Caribbean states, unregulated investment schemes grew quickly in recent years by claiming unusually high monthly returns and through a system of referrals by existing members. These are features shared with traditional Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. This paper describes the growth...

Since the turn of the century, aid flows to Africa have increased on average and become more volatile. As a result, policymakers, particularly in post-stabilization countries where inflation has only recently been brought under control, have been increasingly preoccupied with how best to deploy...

Analysis of firm-level panel data from three sub-Saharan African economies shows that exporting manufacturers have a total factor productivity premium of 11-28 percent. The data do not allow testing of whether these premiums are caused by selection of more efficient producers into exporting or...