The quest for large numbers has been going on for some time in international trade economics: models of trade liberalisation have consistently produced results that, compared ex post with real world data, show the right sign but the “wrong” magnitudes. This paper proposes a new approach by...

Globalisation, governance and economic performance affect each other in very complex mutual relationships. In this paper, we establish a clear and well-circumscribed hypothesis: “is there an effect of globalisation on governance?” To test this hypothesis or, even more specifically, to test...

Assessing the final impact of globalisation on poverty is a difficult task: i) globalisation affects poverty through numerous channels; ii) some linkages are positive and some are negative and therefore cannot be analysed qualitatively but require quantitative assessments, i.e. formal numerical...

Aid ineffectiveness, fragmentation, and volatility have already been highlighted by scholars and OECD studies. Far fewer studies have been devoted to another problem of capital flows: herding behaviour. Building upon a methodology applied to financial markets, where herding is a common feature,...

This paper presents stylised facts about development aid and capital flows to developing countries. It compares their volumes and volatilities and finds that foreign aid is not the major source of finance for these countries any more, though not for all regions. The expansion of private flows...

This paper measures and compares fragmentation in aid sectors. Past studies focused on aggregate country data but a sector analysis provides a better picture of fragmentation. We start by counting the number of aid projects in the developing world and find that, in 2007, more than 90 000...