We study the importance of the local elite as a determinant of the effectiveness of foreign aid in developing countries. An "extractive" elite will misuse aid ?ows, an issue that is probably as old as foreign aid itself. We proxy for the existence of an "extractive" elite by using an...

We study the importance of the local elite as a determinant of the effectiveness of foreign aid in developing countries. The local elite serves as an intermediary between aid donors and aid recipients through its control of the government and major firms. The likelihood of misusing aid is large...

This paper argues that corruption in developing countries has deep historical roots; going all the way back to the characteristics of their colonial experience. The degree of European settlement during colonial times is used to differentiate between types of colonial experience, and is found to...

This paper examines the determinants of financial dollarization in transition economies from a short-run perspective. Using monthly data of deposit and loan dollarization we study the drivers of short-term fluctuations in dollarization and test their importance at different levels of...

We examine business cycle synchronizations between the euro area and the recently acceded EU and currently negotiating countries. Strong evidence is uncovered of time-variation in the degree of comovement between the cyclical components of monthly industrial production indicators for each of...