Large quantities of foreign development assistance continue to flow to many developing countries. At the same time, most of the aid-receiving countries have stagnated and become even more aid-dependent. This grim reality provokes vigorous debate on the effectiveness of aid. Despite the voluminous research on aid effectiveness, clear evidence to support the view that development aid stimulates economic growth remains scant. This thesis intends to extend the existing literature on foreign aid and economic growth. First we re-examine results from cross-country studies to provide new insights on the lack of robustness of results from this approach. We further explore and deepen the observation that cross-country results are fragile, particularly when the number of countries in the sample changes. Secondly, we study the impact of district-level aid disbursement on the growth of average night-time light density in Malawi. We use two plausibly exogenous determinants of within-country aid allocation to isolate the causal effects of aid. The results show a robust and quantitatively significant effect of aid flows in stimulating growth of light density. We find a hump-shaped growth response over three years. Finally, the thesis presents a theoretical model that explores how aid affects economic growth and welfare in an economy with subsistence constraints. The main results from this analysis are; (i) productive aid has higher long run growth and welfare effects than pure aid (ii) the rate of convergence depends crucially on how close the initial conditions are to the subsistence level (iii) while growth effects are maximised when all the aid is allocated to productive aid, we find that optimal welfare is reached when some proportion of aid is also allocated to pure transfers.

This thesis examines competing explanations of the rapid post-war economic growth of the New Industrialising Countries of East Asia (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea). It pays particular attention to the role of the state and to the state's changing relations to other major centres of power. The general approach is then augmented by a detailed exploration using a case study of economic development in South Korea. The new wave of economic development in east Asian countries' has stimulated an vast amount of research from a wide variety of perspectives. Many studies have focused single-mindedly on the central position of the state and its guiding role in economic development, rather than taking a more holistic approach by looking at the complex and evolving interplay between the state and other social sectors. However, this present work attempts to demonstrate the utility of a perspective that places the economic success of east Asian NICs through a detailed examination of the Korean case within a broader context. This context takes account of the shifting international environment and its impact and the cultural factors which these four countries have inherited. It also explores the actions of the state in relation to the responses and strategies of other key groups of actors. In summary, the feature of the actions of state and the state autonomy have been' diversified in accordance with changes of its components. This is even more so in the case of Korea which was once under the military regime but is now civilian controlled by a government. Korea took a specific path to achieve its economic development by creating the chaebols, family-owned conglomerates. It can be said, therefore, that over the last three decades the soil was prepared for the power shift among the power blocs including the state, the chaebols and labour group. The power of the chaebols has grown from being dominated by the state in the 1960s to being more symbiotic with state power in the 1990s. The chaebols have carefully prepared the ground for this new relationship by consolidating their social networks in society. The thesis also examines the mass communication system, concentrating upon the way that shifting relationships between the major power groups impact on the mass media.

Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

In this study, we examine the dynamic relationship between tourism growth and economic growth, using a newly introduced spillover index approach. Based on monthly data for 10 European countries over the period 1995-2012, our analysis reveals the following empirical regularities. First, the tourism-economic growth relationship is not stable over time in terms of both magnitude and direction, indicating that the tourism-led economic growth (TLEG) and the economic-driven tourism growth (EDTG) hypotheses are time-dependent. Second, the aforementioned relationship is also highly economic event-dependent, as it is influenced by the Great Recession of 2007 and the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis that began in 2010. Finally, the impact of these economic events is more pronounced in Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Spain, which are the European countries that have witnessed the greatest economic downturn since 2009. Plausible explanations of these results are provided and policy implications are drawn. (authors' abstract)

The objectives of the study are to assess the fiscal sustainability and development impacts of Ghana’s fiscal rule for allocating petroleum revenues to the annual budget against alternative fiscal rules - the permanent income and the bird-in-hand rules. Fiscal sustainability is measured by government long-term fiscal space in proportion to non-oil GDP, whilst development impacts are measured through a dynamic CGE model of Ghana. Generally, the study makes four important findings on how fiscal policy triggered by the inflow of new petroleum revenues could affect the long-term fiscal sustainability and growth of the economy. One, Ghana’s fiscal rule is neither fiscally sustainable nor provide higher impacts of petroleum revenues on economic development relative to the permanent income and the bird-in-hand rules. Two, fiscal sustainability does not necessarily lead to greater development outcomes. The bird-in-hand rule is the most fiscally sustainable, but the permanent income rule provides higher development outcomes and can move Ghana’s transformation towards a full middle income status. Three, institutional quality in a country could lead to efficiency gains in government spending. Four, efficiency in government spending could improve on development outcomes. Ghana could therefore benefit from its petroleum revenues by adopting the permanent income rule; and with temporary petroleum revenues, the focus of the country should be on current investment of petroleum revenues in building the country’s asset base to support short-term and long-term growth of the economy. However, this should be complemented with strengthening the quality of institutional arrangements to enhance efficiency in government spending.

Has economic integration improved the postwar growth performance of the actual fifteen member states of the European Union (EU)? To answer this question, we first construct an index of integration for each member state that explicitly accounts for global integration (GATT) as well as regional (European) integration. Using this variable, we test for permanent and temporary growth effects in a dynamic growth accounting framework, both in a time series setting for the (aggregate) EU and a panel approach for the EU member states. Although the hypothesis of permanent growth effects as postulated by endogenous growth models with scale effects is clearly rejected, we find significant levels effects: GDP per capita of the EU would be approximately one fifth lower today, if no integration had taken place since 1950. Interestingly, two third of this effect are due to GATT-liberalization. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The main approach to the solution of the debt crisis, which started in EU in 2010, was the adoption of measures focusing on fiscal consolidation. But despite them it is still not possible to claim that the debt crisis has been resolved, and the economic stagnation of EU continues. This thesis follows alternative approach to the solution of debt crisis, specifically the measures revolving around fostering of economic growth. It looks into how different extent of implementation of competitiveness strategies, whose goal together with the improvement of country competitiveness is to also improve economic growth, influenced the impact of debt crisis on selected countries. Based on this analysis we draw a conclusion whether or not measures focused on the economic growth could be a more effective solution of the debt crisis.

We take a critical view of the standard approach to finance and growth. The mapping between the theory and empirics is shown to be poorly understood, and this is traced to deficiencies in our understanding of the microeconomics at play. By looking at both primary and secondary historical evidence we argue that issues of aggregation are critical, and that spatial factors are also prevalent. Further, we suggest that these disaggregated elements can change over the course of an industrial revolution. A model in the spirit of standard finance and growth theories is extended to consider these further effects, and we calibrate the model to data on historical growth paths. In order to advance our understanding of the microeconomic factors that cause the observed phenomena in the finance-growth nexus, we develop a general equilibrium theory of financial intermediation in which exchange costs are endogenously determined by technologies, endowments and preferences. We suggest that incomplete contracts might be central to these phenomena. We link this framework to an understanding of power and political economy in a setting with heterogeneous agents. We develop these results numerically, showing a number of interesting interactions between markets, exchange costs and institutions in economies with different levels of wealth. The model of endogenous exchange costs can be thought of in terms of the findings coming out of our historical analysis. We outline in some detail the further steps that need to be taken before we can speak of the microfoundations of finance and growth with any confidence. First, a fully dynamic model of markets and coalitions must be embedded within a story of economic growth that can match the dynamic observations. Second, we must develop our conception of incomplete contracting and the link with institutions and political economy. The thesis thus opens a number of interesting avenues for future research.

China’s economy has been experiencing high growth since 1979. The growth of China’s economy is attributed to the growth in its international trade. China’s economic growth affects trade growth of other nations because of the combination of its huge size, rapid growth and openness. This study investigates the direct effect of China’s growth on its imports from South Africa. / Economics / M. Com.