Foreign Aid as Prize: Incentives for a Pro-Poor Policy

We develop a theoretical model of foreign aid to analyse a method of disbursement of aid which induces the recipient government to follow a more pro-poor policy than it otherwise would do. In our two-period model, aid is given in the second period and the volume of it depends on the level of wellbeing of the target group in the first period. We find that this way of designing aid does increase the welfare of the poor. We also consider the situations where the donor and the recipient governments act simultaneously as well as sequentially, and find that by moving first in a sequential game, the donor country can, under certain conditions, increase the welfare of the poor and its own compared to the case of simultaneous moves.foreign aid, fungibility, governance, welfare, prize

Peace Dividends in a Trade-theoretic Model of Conflict

We construct a trade-theoretic model for three open economies two of which are in conflict with each other and the third is the source of foreign investments to the two warring countries. War efforts — which involve the use of soldiers — is determined endogenously. The purpose of war is the capture of land, but the costs are production sacrificed, reduced flow of foreign investments, and general disruptions in the economy. We examine the effect of a bilateral piecemeal reduction in war efforts on the level of foreign investments and on welfare in the three countries. We find positive effects on all fronts.War, peace dividend, foreign investment.

Political asymmetry and common external tariff in a customs union

We present a three-nation model, where two of the nations are members of a Customs Union (CU) and maintain a common external tariff (CET) on the third (non-member) nation. The producing lobby is assumed to be union-wide and lobbies both governments to influence the CET. The CET is determined jointly by the CU. We follow the political support function approach, where the CU seeks to maximize a weighted sum of the constituents? payoff functions, the weights reflecting the influence of the respective governments in the CU. A central finding of this paper is that the CET rises monotonically with the degree of asymmetry in the weights if the two countries are equally susceptible to lobbying. If the weights are the same, but the respective governments are asymmetric in their susceptibilities to lobbying, the CET also rises monotonically with this asymmetry. However, an increase in one type of asymmetry, in the presence of the other type of asymmetry, may reduce the CET.Tariff

Cost Heterogeneity and the Destination of Foreign Direct Investment

This paper first of all develops a theoretical model to examine a number of heterogeneous firms' choice between making export-oriented foreign direct investments (FDI) in a host country and making FDI in another country to serve the market there. It is shown that all firms below a critical level of efficiency invest in the first country, and the other relatively more efficient firms invest in the second host country. The hypothesis is tested using firmlevel data on 118,300 Japanese firms covering the entire manufacturing sector. Multinomial logit estimates strongly support our theoretical findings.Cost heterogeneity, Oligopoly, Foreign direct Investment, Export-oriented FDI

Should easier access to international credit replace foreign aid?

We examine the interaction between foreign aid and binding borrowing constraint for a recipient country. We also analyze how these two instruments affect economic growth via non-linear relationships. First of all, we develop a two-country, two-period trade-theoretic model to develop testable hypotheses and then we use dynamic panel analysis to test those hypotheses empirically. Our main findings are that: (i) better access to international credit for a recipient country reduces the amount of foreign aid it receives, and (ii) there is a critical level of international financial transfer, and the marginal effect of foreign aid is larger than that of loans if and only if the transfer (loans or foreign aid) is below this critical level.Foreign aid program

The fiscal impact of foreign aid in Rwanda : a theoretical and empirical analysis

The inflow of large quantities of foreign aid into Rwanda since 1994 can have potential adverse effects such as aid dependency via a significant negative effect on tax efforts and on public investments. This paper carries out a theoretical and empirical study to examine these issues. The theoretical part develops a model in which the recipient government decides on the optimal level of tax and optimally allocates total government revenue between current expenditure and public investment. The theoretical model makes it possible to empirically test whether an increase in aid is likely to reduce the optimal tax rate and the proportion of public expenditure allocated to public investment. The econometric analysis uses time series data on Rwanda to show, in line with other studies in the literature, a negative relationship between increased aid and the tax rate; but the magnitude of the effects are extremely small. In the case of Rwanda, reforms to the tax administration and expansion of the tax base have had mitigating effects. As far as the effect on public investment, the overall effect was negative in the past; however, since 1995 the direction of this effect has changed.Debt Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Economics&Finance,,Access to Finance

Reforms of Environmental Policies in the presence of Cross-border Pollution and Two-stage Clean-up

We construct a two-country model where pollution from production is transmitted across borders. Pollution abatement is undertaken sequentially by private producers and the public sector. We characterize the Nash optimal levels of the policy instruments in the two countries: emission taxes and funds allocated for public abatement activities. We examine the implications of a number of multilateral policy reforms. One of our findings is that the magnitude of the beneficial effect of a reform depends on the scope of the reform, and if it is restricted to a subset of policy instruments, then the efficacy of environmental policy reform can be greatly undermined.

Should Easier Access to International Credit Replace Foreign Aid?

We examine the interaction between foreign aid and binding borrowing constraint for a recipient country. We also analyze how these two instruments affect economic growth via non-linear relationships. First of all, we develop a two-country, two-period trade-theoretic model to develop testable hypotheses and then we use dynamic panel analysis to test those hypotheses empirically. Our main findings are that: (i) better access to international credit for a recipient country reduces the amount of foreign aid it receives, and (ii) there is a critical level of international financial transfer, and the marginal effect of foreign aid is larger than that of loans if and only if the transfer (loans or foreign aid) is below this critical level.foreign aid, foreign loans, borrowing constraint, economic growth, fungibility, public input

Gender Bias in Education: the Role of Inter-household Externality, Dowry and Other Social Institutions

We analyze gender bias in school enrollment by developing a two-period model where women become part of extended families of their in-laws. Each family decides how many children are sent to school and thus become skilled. Gender bias occurs due to failure of the families to internalize inter-household externalities. ‘Groom-price’ dowry worsens the situation. Under ‘bride-price’ dowry, bias exists if and only if the skill premium in the labor market is bigger than that in the marriage market. A specific discriminatory ‘food-for-education’ policy is shown to reduce bias, but increase total enrollment. Finally, using cross-country data, we test some of the predictions of our theoretical analysis