Existing estimates of the welfare cost of business cycles suggest that it is quite low and might well be minuscule. Many of these estimates are based on aggregated U.S. consumption data. Arguably, because markets are incomplete and risk-sharing is imperfect, the welfare costs computed with...

In this paper, we argue that it would be fruitful to revisit foreign aid's potential as an insurance mechanism against macroeconomic shocks. In a simple model of aid flows between two endowment economies, we show that at least three fourths of the large welfare costs of macroeconomic...

Official development assistance (grants and subsidized loans from foreign aid agencies) is the main source of external finance in developing countries. These financial aid flows are positively correlated with the recipients' business cycles, which is puzzling because it reinforces already strong...