The debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid has intensified in recent years as aid has come under increasing budgetary pressures in donor countries. Whatever the merits of the opposing arguments, the fundamental issue arises of whether conventionally-used measures of aid such as ODA, which...

The debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid has intensified in recent years as aid has come under increasing budgetary pressures in donor countries. Whatever the merits of the opposing arguments, the fundamental issue arises of whether conventionally-used measures of aid such as ODA, which...

Conventional measures of aid are not designed to estimate the overall aid content of financial flows. Furthermore, they typically overstate the grant elements of concessional loans, thus understating relative aid flows to recipients getting mostly grants and from donors giving mostly grants (and...