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Anubha Dhasmana
Foreign aid flows to poor, aid-dependent economies are highly volatile and pro-cyclical. Shortfalls in aid coincide with shortfalls in GDP and government revenues. This increases the consumption volatility in aid dependent countries, thereby causing substantial welfare losses. This paper finds that indexing aid flows to exogenous shocks like a change in the terms of trade can significantly improve the welfare of aid-dependent country by lowering its output and consumption volatility. Compared to the benchmark specification with stochastic aid flows, indexation of aid flows to terms of trade shocks can reduce the cost of business cycle fluctuations in the recipient country by four percent of permanent consumption. Moreover, use of indexed aid can allow donors to reduce the aid flows by three percent without lowering the level of welfare in the recipient country.
Yongzheng Yang
,
Mr. Robert Powell
, and
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta

Abstract

Au cours des dix prochaines années, les pays africains seront les principaux bénéficiaires de l'augmentation de l'aide extérieure, qui vise à les aider à atteindre les objectifs du millénaire pour le développement. Ce manuel vise à aider ces pays à évaluer les effets macroéconomiques de l'expansion de l'aide et à surmonter les défis qu'ils impliquent. Il se veut une référence pour les responsables, les économistes praticiens sur le terrain et le personnel des institutions financières internationales et des organismes donateurs qui participent à l'élaboration de stratégies à moyen terme pour les pays africains, notamment dans le contexte des documents de stratégie pour la réduction de la pauvreté. Le manuel présente cinq directives principales pour l'élaboration de scénarios d'expansion visant à aider les pays à déterminer les questions politiques importantes pour une gestion efficace de l'augmentation des flux d'aide : comment absorber autant d'aide extérieure que possible, comment augmenter la croissance à court et à moyen terme, comment promouvoir la bonne gouvernance et réduire la corruption, comment préparer une stratégie de sortie pour faire face à une diminution de l'aide, et comment réévaluer régulièrement le dosage de mesures.

Boriana Yontcheva
,
Mr. Peter Isard
,
Mr. Leslie Lipschitz
, and
Mr. Alex Mourmouras

Abstract

Relatively slow progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 target date has added urgency to the challenge of reducing global poverty. The authors of this new book--who include scholars from the IMF, World Bank, Oxford University, and the Center for Global Development--argue that the MDGs cannot be achieved without a substantial scaling up of foreign aid. They show how such increased aid flows must be managed effectively to ensure the greatest benefit. And they offer analysis and insight on a variety of macroeconomic policy implications that both donors and recipients should consider.

Yongzheng Yang
,
Mr. Robert Powell
, and
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta

Abstract

Over the next decade, African countries are expected to be the largest beneficiaries of increased donor aid, which is intended to improve their prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. This handbook will help these countries assess the macroeconomic implications of increased aid and respond to the associated policy challenges. The handbook is directed at policymakers, practicing economists in African countries, and the staffs of international financial institutions and donor agencies who participate in preparing medium-term strategies for African countries, including in the context of poverty reduction strategy papers. It provides five main guidelines for developing scaling-up scenarios to help countries identify important policy issues involved in using higher aid flows effectively: to absorb as much aid as possible, to boost growth in the short to medium term, to promote good governance and reduce corruption, to prepare an exit strategy should aid levels decrease, and to regularly reassess the policy mix.

International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.

With one billion people in developing countries living on less than $1 a day, the elimination of extreme poverty remains high on the policy agenda of the international community. Sustained high rates of economic growth are critical to poverty reduction, and improved growth performance in many cases requires improvements in the quality of basic economic institutions such as property rights and governance, including a reduction in corruption. But what spurs institutional improvements? Can better institutions be built quickly? The September 2005 World Economic Outlook (WEO) takes stock of existing knowledge and identifies several factors that appear to enhance institutional quality.

Yongzheng Yang
,
Mr. Robert Powell
, and
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta
This paper surveys the economic literature on the scaling-up of aid to Africa. It provides a checklist of issues that need to be considered when preparing a long term macroeconomic projection for a country involving the assumption of a significant increase in aid. Such scaling-up scenarios are most likely to be developed in the context of a country's efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the support of the international donor community. The paper stresses that when preparing a scaling-up scenario it is critical to have a detailed understanding of the likely use of additional aid flows.
Ms. Mwanza Nkusu
and
Selin Sayek
With official development assistance (ODA) set to rise as countries strive to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aid effectiveness remains an important area of development policy. An increasing number of studies support the notion that ODA can contribute to growth in a nonlinear relationship. In this paper, we investigate a new hypothesis regarding this relationship: that deeper financial markets in aid-recipient countries facilitate the management of aid flows, thereby enhancing aid effectiveness. An empirical analysis, using a panel data set, finds robust support for the hypothesis.
Mr. Peter Isard

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, the challenge of reducing poverty around the world has been more prominent on the agenda of the international community.1 Relatively slow progress toward meeting the MDGs by the 2015 target date has added to the urgency of this effort. Two influential reports—the United Nations Millennium Project Report (the “Sachs Report”) and the Commission for Africa Report (the “Blair Report”)—envisage substantial increases in aid flows to poor countries, especially to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The international community sees increases in aid, along with improvements in recipient policies and freer global trade, as necessary for global prosperity and poverty reduction.

Yongzheng Yang
,
Mr. Robert Powell
, and
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta

Abstract

This handbook provides a checklist of the macroeconomic challenges that low-income countries are likely to face if they begin to receive significantly higher official development assistance (ODA) than in the recent past. The checklist, which is derived from a survey of the economic literature, is a tool for developing illustrative macroeconomic scenarios for individual countries in response to a scaling up of aid flows. For example, one scaling-up scenario might involve a doubling of official resource transfers as a share of a recipient country’s GDP, with higher aid flows being sustained for a decade or more.