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...

Donor interest in the extractives sector is based upon the premise that it represents an opportunity to improve a country’s development prospects. However, in many cases the presence of extractive resources is associated with poor economic performance. As a result, some donors are trying a...

This study revisits the effect of aid on the quality of institutions and examines the effects of a major source of instability, namely terms-of-trade instability, on the quality of democracy. We take advantage of previous empirical findings which explain the role of aid in mitigating the adverse...

A number of political economy concerns are associated with the provision of foreign aid to developing economies. These concerns suggest that foreign aid is likely to have harmful effects on a recipient's institutional quality; also that attempts to give aid conditional on policy and...

This chapter is motivated by the question of whether development assistance directed at agriculture (agricultural aid) is effective. It argues that development assistance is continually changing as the ascendant visions of strong global leaders interact with theories of economic growth and...

Purpose- With the recent financial crisis and reduction of foreign aid by donor countries, the aid-institutions debate is shifting to how aid instability affects governance in developing countries. We engage the policy debate by assessing the role of foreign aid instability on governance...

The purpose of the chapter is to analyze Africa's economic successes in the past half century, to understand not only what made it possible but also and more importantly what risk factors may eventually bring it to an end or compromise it. While it may not be possible for Africa to alter, for...

Natural resources are being discovered in more countries, both rich and poor. Many of the new and aspiring resource exporters are low-income countries that are still receiving substantial levels of foreign aid. Resource discoveries open up enormous opportunities, but also expose producing...

The international donor community has grave concerns about the prospects for poverty reduction in what it terms fragile states. A state is classified as fragile if its country policy and institutional assessment (CPIA) score falls below a particular threshold. Recognizing that all states are...