This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large crosscountry dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to...

One of the most important recent innovations in financial markets has been the development of credit derivative products that allow banks to more actively manage their credit portfolios than ever before.We analyse the effect that access to these markets has had on the lending behaviour of a...

Cette étude propose de définir les Etats fragiles par les caractéristiques qui les éloignent de l'Etat d'intérêt commun et de l'autocratie répressive. Les « Failed states » constituent un des plus grands défis du développement car ils ont peu de raisons de tendre vers ces deux formes...

Many poor countries are now discovering valuable non-renewable natural resources. Unlike most other sources of tax revenue, the government revenues from the depletion of these resources are both unsustainable and volatile. Each of these features implies that the savings rate appropriate for...

In many African countries a market for private provision of formal sector mass housing is largely absent. This is not inevitable, but is the consequence of policy failure surrounding five key issues. The affordability of housing, with costs often inflated by inappropriate building regulations...

The financial sector is becoming more important because of the natural resource booms. The taxation of natural resource exports will generate large increases in revenues and this will transform the ability of governments to borrow in the markets for sovereign debt. These constitute temporary...

1. IntroductionNecessarily, all donors will focus increasingly on fragile states. The more successful countries in Africa have achieved growing tax bases and are consequently now gaining access to global capital markets. For such countries, aid is becoming marginal. In contrast, fragile states,...

I discuss how aid can support growth in small, isolated economies. Small markets frustrate scale economies and competition. Combined with high transport costs, essential inputs become prohibitively expensive. Breaking the coordination problem requires pioneering investment. Since this generates...