Our objective is to test the hypothesis that ai d can improve the welfare of the poor. Part of this effect is direct, if aid is targeted on the poor, and part is indirect, via the transmission channel of aid-financed public spending on social services - sanitation, education and health. This...

In accounting for the rather gloomy trend of the aid effectiveness literature over the last few years, one explanatory strand has been fiscal, suggesting in particular that aid flows in weak states have tended to erode the taxbase and the structure of institutions. We pursue this idea, tracing...