We explore the effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth in developing countries, distinguishing between mergers and acquisitions ("M&As") and "greenfield" investment. A simple model captures the key difference between the two types of FDI: unlike greenfield investment, M&As partly...

Most studies treat aid flows as a unitary concept with a standard result that aid does not affect long-run economic growth or development. This chapter argues that the standard finding may be misleading if different types of aid have different effects. To alleviate this problem, I use factor...

This paper outlines how inflows of foreign aid might push up the real price of investments and thus crowd out private investments. The main implication - that aid leads to increasing real investment prices - finds substantial support in panel estimates from 78 developing countries. The effects...

Hopes for development aid remain high among Western politicians and pundits, but the evidence is depressing. Foreign aid has on average probably no effect on long-run growth. To understand the failure of many development projects, we need a deeper consideration of the failure of top-down...