The literature has shown that aggregate aid is mostly ineffective (Doucouliagos and Paldam, 2011). However, new studies on foreign aid also show that the effect of aid depends on both aid type and the donor type (Clemens et al., 2012; Isaksson and Kotsadam, 2018). Thus, the first essay investigates the impact of education aid on educational outcomes. The study uses panel data for 83 developing countries from 2000-2014 to examine World Bank education aid. The results suggest that there is no robust evidence that education aid is effective in improving educational outcomes. The paper finds some evidence that aid improves enrollment rates in primary and secondary but not tertiary education. The results show that aid's effectiveness is determined, to a large extent, by the type of aid and the economic outcomes aid targeted. Likewise, the second essay examines whether specific types of aid are more effective across different donors. The study uses factor analysis to separate aid flows into interpretable categories, economic purposes, social purposes, and infrastructure. In addition, the study compares three donors, the World Bank, the U.S., and China. Examining the growth effect of each aid type for each donor shows that the impacts depend on aid type. All the aid types are positive irrespective of the donor, though only the U.S. aid types show some improvements economic growth. The Chinese economic aid is a complement of the World Bank economic aid. However, the Chinese social aid and the World Bank social aid are both substitutes. Both studies show that most foreign aid to developing countries is not effective, but disaggregating aid by type can lead to moderate improvements in developing countries.

This thesis examines the ways in which the Canadian and British bilateral donors—the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA, now Global Affairs Canada) and the Department for International Development (DFID)—have approached the intersections of religion and development. While DFID has been increasingly attentive to the topic, no significant government initiatives on religion in development have been launched by its Canadian counterpart since the early 1990s. Despite their seemingly divergent approaches to religion, the aid cultures of both donors are shaped by Western assumptions about “religion” and “the secular” that are not always shared by program communities. These assumptions, which are evident in both funding patterns and discourse, have the potential to marginalize local perspectives. Government donors exude significant influence on contemporary development practice and thus have the potential to play an important role in efforts to reform the dominant aid culture; however, given the intersecting inequalities manifest on both a global and local level, such efforts are convoluted and contentious. / February 2017

The foreign aid sector is expanding each year, distributing hundreds of billions of USD per year to the least developed countries of the world. Meanwhile, extensive research has found that aid is not an efficient way to stimulate economic growth in the recipients. Neither is it an effective way to increase long-term sustainable development. While a major debate is going on regarding what actions can be taken to increase the efficiency of foreign aid, a parallel discussion is going on regarding whether the motives of the donor countries are complicit in making the aid inefficient. This thesis examines the contemporary discourse on motives behind foreign aid allocation and puts together an analytical framework for distinguishing between humanitarian, developmental and strategical motives. This framework is used to interpret the results of an empirical study covering two groups of donors; five donors that have previously been found to prioritize their own interests over those of the recipients, and five donors with a more altruistic profile within the literature on the topic. The results of this study corroborate those findings, while emphasizing the impact of colonial- and regional ties for both groups of donors.

This dissertation addresses three important questions surrounding the politics of foreign aid, namely what leads to its provisions by donor countries, and what are some of its consequences on those receiving it. Using arguments rooted in political economy models and large-N statistics, this dissertation provides three core findings: (i) Foreign aid can be driven by heterogenous motives in the donor country. (ii) This heterogeneity determines whether a donor lives up to the promises over foreign aid that it makes. (iii) Inflows of foreign aid tend to restrain the government’s propensity to engage in killings.

By year 2020, developed countries pledged to mobilize USD100 billion per year towards mitigation of greenhouse gases and strategies of adaptation. This redistribution from Annex I (developed) countries to developing countries represents a near doubling of current official development assistance levels, yet future strategies of adaptation remain nebulous. Definitions, opinions and agendas of adaptation have evolved into new global development strategy, but will externally-designed strategies threaten an adaptive process that should be community-led and environmentally-contextual? Little empirical research has been conducted on adaptation as an international development strategy that consists of massive earmarking of funds to institute and later demonstrate that projects are related to climate change. Through semi-structured interviews with international and development organizations, national and local governments, civil society and community focus groups, this research chronicles Malawi's polycentric response to climate change vulnerability. Using site-visits to numerous active adaptation projects in Malawi as case-studies, this research examines who the stakeholders are in this process, what adaptation looks like and how the overall concept of this new development strategy can be improved. / text

Foreign aid has shaped the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa since independence. There has been passionate debate as to whether this has helped or hurt Africa’s poor economies. One of the downsides to foreign aid is the effect it can have on appreciating the real exchange rate and on harming the competitiveness of export-oriented sectors in favour of producers of non-traded goods. I find that the influence of aid flows on the real exchange rate varies greatly across countries, and that movements in the real exchange rate driven by foreign aid have been overshadowed by policy changes and structural adjustment.

In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," Peter Singer urges citizens of wealthy countries to make immense personal sacrifices in order to assist the poor overseas. Though Singer has moderated his view in recent years and now supports widespread tithing, the motivation remains the same. By contrast, Immanuel Kant contends that the first right of humanity is freedom and that the purpose of a political order is to unite people into a rightful condition. As part of this, taxes should be imposed in order to support the domestic poor - an obligation that does not extend across borders. Although their underlying assumptions are quite different, Singer and Kant’s concerns can both be addressed by a common solution: the creation of a global tax to support the poor, implemented by a global state. Such an arrangement would permit substantial coordinated flows of aid to the needy (meeting Singer’s utilitarian concerns) while also ensuring that all people of the world are in a rightful condition with each other, thereby providing the justification for global social assistance (respecting Kantian deontology.) This solution requires expanding Singer’s proposals and a revisionist reading of Kant that dismisses his arguments against the creation of a global state. (Rawls’ support for a world of distinct states that support each other can also be dismissed, as his approach does not sufficiently connect political structures with personal duty, as Singer and Kant both do.) Though the final form of the solution is largely the same, Kant’s framework is superior: while Singer cannot eliminate the danger of becoming overwhelmed by duty, Kant’s focus on individual autonomy can guard against this. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-10-01 12:30:15.657

This dissertation consists of three essays on the impact of non-market financial flows in developing countries. The first essay answers two questions. First, to what extent are remittances (as private transfers) differentiable from grants (as public transfers) in their effects on capital formation and growth? Second, how might the motivations to remit inform the nature of the relationship between remittances and growth? Using a sample of four developing countries, results suggest that remittances and grants, in fact, do behave differently. Remittances have no significant relationship with investment for all but one country (remittances are positively correlated with growth for Bangladesh). Grants’ impact on investment is negative in Egypt, positive in Pakistan and Syria and insignificant in Bangladesh. Migrants’ motivations to remit are found to be different across countries. Enlightened self-interest motivation to remit is the most likely cause of growth impacts in Egypt. A combination of self-interest and enlightened self-interest explains the growth impact in Bangladesh. Finally, a combination of migrants’ altruistic behavior and self-interest attitude explains the growth impact in Pakistan and Syria. The second essay demonstrates the allocation of foreign aid between consumption and investment with special emphasis on the importance of reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 61 countries from 1980 to 2006, results indicate that, on average, 23 to 25% of any increase in foreign aid has been directed towards financing reverse flows. 78% was consumed and an insignificant amount was invested. Additional investigation suggests that almost 50% of aid is used for reverse flows in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19% in the Americas and 16 to 20% in North Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The third essay examines how remittances are allocated between consumption, investment and reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 36 countries from 1980 to 2006, results suggest that almost 80% of any increase in remittances/GDP was consumed. With respect to investment, remittances had to statistically discernable effect on rate of investment. Additionally, 20% of any increase in remittances was diverted as reverse flows and contributed neither to increase consumption nor to investment.

This dissertation consists of three essays on the impact of non-market financial flows in developing countries. The first essay answers two questions. First, to what extent are remittances (as private transfers) differentiable from grants (as public transfers) in their effects on capital formation and growth? Second, how might the motivations to remit inform the nature of the relationship between remittances and growth? Using a sample of four developing countries, results suggest that remittances and grants, in fact, do behave differently. Remittances have no significant relationship with investment for all but one country (remittances are positively correlated with growth for Bangladesh). Grants’ impact on investment is negative in Egypt, positive in Pakistan and Syria and insignificant in Bangladesh. Migrants’ motivations to remit are found to be different across countries. Enlightened self-interest motivation to remit is the most likely cause of growth impacts in Egypt. A combination of self-interest and enlightened self-interest explains the growth impact in Bangladesh. Finally, a combination of migrants’ altruistic behavior and self-interest attitude explains the growth impact in Pakistan and Syria. The second essay demonstrates the allocation of foreign aid between consumption and investment with special emphasis on the importance of reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 61 countries from 1980 to 2006, results indicate that, on average, 23 to 25% of any increase in foreign aid has been directed towards financing reverse flows. 78% was consumed and an insignificant amount was invested. Additional investigation suggests that almost 50% of aid is used for reverse flows in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19% in the Americas and 16 to 20% in North Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The third essay examines how remittances are allocated between consumption, investment and reverse flows in developing countries. Using a panel of 36 countries from 1980 to 2006, results suggest that almost 80% of any increase in remittances/GDP was consumed. With respect to investment, remittances had to statistically discernable effect on rate of investment. Additionally, 20% of any increase in remittances was diverted as reverse flows and contributed neither to increase consumption nor to investment.

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.