The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, launched in 1999 by the IMF and the World Bank, was the first coordinated effort by the international financial community to reduce the foreign debt of the world’s poorest countries. It was based on the theory that economic growth in heavily indebted poor countries was being stifled by heavy debt burdens, making it virtually impossible for these countries to escape poverty. However, most of the empirical research on the effects of debt on growth has lumped together a diverse group of countries, and the literature on the countries’ impact of debt on poor is scant. This pamphlet presents the findings of the authors’ empirical research into the subject, analyzing the channels through which debt affects growth in low-income countries.

An edited collection on foreign aid that addresses important aid questions, and reviews the shifting aid landscape in light of the recent global financial crisis. The volume reviews the progress achieved so far, identifies the challenges ahead, and discusses the emerging policy agenda in foreign aid.

First published in 1971, this reissue considers the main aspects of foreign aid to developing countries in terms of economic concepts and principles. The author gives an economic definition of aid and considers the motives for giving aid and the principles on which it may be allocated. He looks at the effect on the economic growth of developing countries of both the aid given and the need to repay the debt, and the effect on trade patterns and resource allocation of tying aid to one particular project, or one source of goods. While economic analysis is only a first step in providing a basis for policy decisions on foreign aid, Dr Healey shows that many issues can be clarified by looking at them from the economists’ point of view.

Top experts in the field discuss how to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid, proposing practical solutions to specific problems rather than a utopian master plan. The urgency of reducing poverty in the developing world has been the subject of a public campaign by such unlikely policy experts as George Clooney, Alicia Keyes, Elton John, Angelina Jolie, and Bono. And yet accompanying the call for more foreign aid is an almost universal discontent with the effectiveness of the existing aid system. In Reinventing Foreign Aid, development expert William Easterly has gathered top scholars in the field to discuss how to improve foreign aid. These authors, Easterly points out, are not claiming that their ideas will (to invoke a current slogan) Make Poverty History. Rather, they take on specific problems and propose some hard-headed solutions. Easterly himself, in an expansive and impassioned introductory chapter, makes a case for the “searchers”—who explore solutions by trial and error and learn from feedback—over the “planners”—who throw an endless supply of resources at a big goal—as the most likely to reduce poverty. Other writers look at scientific evaluation of aid projects (including randomized trials) and describe projects found to be cost-effective, including vaccine delivery and HIV education; consider how to deal with the government of the recipient state (work through it or bypass a possibly dysfunctional government?); examine the roles of the International Monetary Fund (a de-facto aid provider) and the World Bank; and analyze some new and innovative proposals for distributing aid. Contributors Abhijit Banerjee, Nancy Birdsall, Craig Burnside, Esther Duflo, Domenico Fanizza, William Easterly, Ruimin He, Kurt Hoffman, Stephen Knack, Michael Kremer, Mari Kuraishi, Ruth Levine, Bertin Martens, John McMillan, Edward Miguel, Jonathan Morduch, Todd Moss, Gunilla Pettersson, Lant Pritchett, Steven Radelet, Aminur Rahman, Ritva Reinikka, Jakob Svensson, Nicolas van de Walle, James Vreeland, Dennis Whittle, Michael Woolcock

The papers presented here were first given at the International Conference of Economists at the University of Zagreb in Yugoslavia. The book contains a rare selection of divergent theoretical and practical views on the acute problem of international debt and its repercussions on world economic growth at large and the developing countries in particular.

This book assesses the prospects of official development assistance (ODA) for poverty reduction. It analyzes the entire value chain of ODA, including provision, allocation and utilization. Within each of these components, coverage examines scope and limits of aid. The horizontal interactions between donors and recipients as well as the vertical connections to local and region-specific conditions represent the heart of this book's approach.