This paper evaluates aid both by considering the evidence on aid effectiveness in promoting growth and by considering how effective has aid been in exerting leverage on policy choices. We argue that in both respects aid has had beneficial effects. It is rather easy to demonstrate that if a...

In this paper we examine whether absorptive capacity can constitute sufficient justification for rejecting the proposal of a large aid increase to support the ‘big push’. We argue that the probability of a poverty trap exists for many countries, in particular the least developed countries...

Recent studies offer an ambiguous picture on the effectiveness of foreign aid in strengthening the export capacity of recipient countries. Moreover, the literature on aid for trade (AfT) has often neglected that exporters in the donor countries may be among the main beneficiaries. We hypothesize...

After receiving at least US$20 billion in aid for reconstruction and development over the past 60 years, Haiti has been and remains a fragile state, one of the worse globally. The reasons for aid failure are legion but mostly relate to highly dysfunctional Haitian regimes, sometimes destructive...

The World Bank's health sector projects in Timor-Leste - the Health Sector Rehabilitation and Development Project and the Second Health Sector Rehabilitation and Development Project - have been among the few successful operations it has funded in that country. This paper examines the factors...

This paper examines the application of the first two principles of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, namely ownership and alignment, to the cases of Mali and Ghana. It argues that Western donors and recipient governments have adopted the Paris Principles mainly in form, rather...