We analyze the relationship between per capita income and foreign aid. We employ annual data and five-year averages and carefully examine the time-series properties of the data. Panel estimations with dynamic feasible generalized least-squares (DFGLS) show that aid generally has an insignificant...

This article investigates the impact of piped water supply and sanitation on health outcomes in urban Yemen using a combination of quasi-experimental methods and results from microbiological water tests. Variations in project roll-out allow separate identification of water and sanitation...

In the past twenty years, India's economy has grown at increasing rates and now belongs to the fastest-growing economies in the world. This paper examines drivers of female labor force participation in urban India between 1987 and 2004, showing a much more nuanced picture of female labor force...

The Human Development Index (HDI) published in the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program has been calculated as a simple average of the Life Expectancy Index, the Education Index and the Gross Domestic Product Index. This paper provides statistical support for the...

Since their inception in 1995, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) have been criticized on conceptual and empirical grounds. In 2005-6, the UNDP's Human Development Report Office undertook a review of these...

This paper critically reviews conceptual and empirical problems issues with the United Nations Development Programme's two gender-related indicators: the Gender-related Development Index and the Gender Empowerment Measure. While supporting the need for gender-related development measures, the...

In this article, we critically review the three most common approaches of assessing chronic food insecurity and undernutrition: (i) the FAO indicator of undernourishment, (ii) household food consumption surveys, and (iii) childhood anthropometrics. There is a striking and worrying degree of...

Most numerical targets within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are overly ambitious for the poorest countries when interpreted as country-specific goals. As a consequence, the current system undermines accountability and ownership and jeopardizes the public support the...

In the past twenty years, India's economy has grown at increasingly faster rates and now belongs to the fastest-growing economies in the world. One would think that in such economic conditions, women are increasingly being pulled into the labour force by attractive pay and employment conditions....

Using data from 1988 to 2007, we examine to what extent bilateral aid flows of an individual donor to a country depend on aid flows from all other bilateral and multilateral donors to that country. We thereby want to assess to what extent donor coordination, free-riding, selectivity, and common...