A response to the pressing need to address and clarify the substantial ambiguity within current literature, this edited volume aims to deepen readers’ understanding of the impact of foreign aid on development outcomes based on the latest findings in research over the past decade. Foreign aid has long been seen as one of two extremes: either beneficial or damaging, a blessing or a curse. Consequently, many readers perceive aid’s effectiveness based on the work of scholars who are assessing the impact of aid from one of two antithetical perspectives. This book takes a different approach, shedding light on recent research that can deepen our understanding of the complex relationship between aid and its aftereffects. Drawing from an extensive set of studies that have explored micro and macro impacts of foreign aid for recipient nations, chapter authors highlight more layered and nuanced findings, with a focus on donor characteristics, political motives, and an evaluation of aid projects and their effectiveness, including the differential impact based on type of aid. This volume is the first of its kind to unpack aid as a complex rather than a unitary concept and explore the wide areas of grey that have long enshrouded foreign aid.

This book traces the economic history of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1975, the period encompassing the Vietnam war.

Published in 1998, this book provides an empirical analysis of the impact of foreign economic aid in 67 developed countries over a 19 year period. The results include the relationships between aid and growth and the implication that methodologies traditionally used have been largely responsible for inconsistent findings in the past.

How important is foreign aid in fostering economic growth in developing countries? Does it help recipient countries, hurt them, or have little effect either way? Foreign Aid Allocation, Governance, and Economic Growth investigates this issue by looking at foreign aid by sector rather than treating it as an aggregate amount. Aid can be allocated to a recipient's production sectors (such as agriculture, manufacturing, or mining), economic infrastructure (such as transport, storage, or communications networks or power generation facilities), or social sectors (such as education or healthcare). This book differentiates among various channels through which each of these three categories of foreign aid affects economic growth. The findings suggest that economic aid, including aid to production sectors and economic infrastructure, contributes to economic growth by increasing domestic investment. Aid to social sectors, however, does not appear to have a significant impact on human capital (measured by school enrollment) and economic growth. This study also assesses the degree to which the quality of democratic governance in a recipient country influences foreign aid's effectiveness and finds that democracy is no guarantee of aid effectiveness. In fact, economic aid to less democratic countries can lead to better economic growth, at least initially, provided the aid recipients secure property rights and allow capital accumulation. Although further research into the question is necessary, Foreign Aid Allocation, Governance, and Economic Growth suggests that aid targeted to increasing domestic investment might be an effective means of fostering economic growth in less developed countries.

This study has examined sectoral analysis of the impact of foreign aid on aggregate and sectoral economic growth in Ethiopia over the period 1981 to 2012 using Multivariate Vector Auto Regression analysis. All the necessary time series tests such as stationary test, co-integration test, weak exiguity test, vector error correction, and causality test in vector error correction model and the like are conducted. The empirical result from the growth equation shows that aid has a significant positive impact on educational sector GDP growth in the long run. On the other hand, foreign aid has positive but insignificant impact on real GDP growth, agriculture GDP growth, and health sector GDP growth of Ethiopia for the period under consideration. Foreign aid is effective in enhancing economic growth at aggregate level of Ethiopia in general and education sector in particular. The result of the study reveals that there is a bi-directional causal relationship between educational GDP and educational foreign aid in Ethiopia. There is also a unidirectional causality between agricultural aid and agricultural GDP growth. However, the health sector does not show any causality with their respective sector aid. This implies that aid allocated for certain sectors is ineffective in achieving its objectives of economic growth. Therefore, aid recipient country like Ethiopia has to work how to enhance the domestic revenue raising capacity of the country which is at the heart of the mechanism to meet the capital required for the economy in times of short falls and ineffectiveness of external resources.

The success or failure of economic assistance programs is a shared responsibility of recipient countries and donors. The negative attitude about aid prevalent today underscores a perception the aid has failed. Critics often blame corrupt regimes, weak governments, or poor economic policies. However, the poor track record of aid is also due to donors' inability to allocate limited funds effectively and poor coordination of their aid efforts. Declining aid budgets have led to fundamental questioning of foreign aid's allocation and utility, while the apparent ineffectiveness of aid has shrunk aid budgets and turned public opinion against providing it. This edited collection containing pieces written by leading development specialists evaluates these emerging questions of allocation and efficiency. Development economists, policy makers, and development specialists will benefit from reading this work. Chapters examine the optimal and intertemporal allocation of aid, the role and accountability of NGOs in allocation, the importance of untying (a new perspective on low levels of aid), and links between the allocation pattern of donors. Additional chapters deal with the impact of aid on economic growth, democracy, wage inequality between skilled and unskilled labor, and the role of governance and institutional capacity in aid effectiveness. An effective balance between theoretical and empirical models is offered to better illustrate the issues involved.