The Economics Of Foreign Aid And Self Sustaining Development

This book brings together for the first time in a single volume a complete survey of the theoretical foundations of economic aid policies and a critical analysis of aid programs and practices. The book focuses on the contributions of familiar economic growth models and other economic and social theories of development to foreign aid practices, and provides a broad and penetrating overview of the economics of foreign aid. At the macroanalytical level, the author investigates the savings constraint and the foreign exchange constraint approaches and the models employed for determining the quantity of external capital required for achieving growth goals under varying economic conditions in the recipient economies. The author examines other approaches to aid requirements (including the capital absorptive approach), analyzes debt service capacity, and reviews various debt cycle models. The nature and significance of indicators of economic performance are investigated, and both theoretical and practical policy issues relating to the employment of aid as a means of influencing domestic policies are analyzed. In his final chapter, the author applies his theoretical conclusions to the formulation of an integrated approach to foreign aid, encompassing the major foreign assistance problems faced today. A clear and comprehensive text for every student of development economics, as well as the most thorough reference of its kind for professional economists, the book, a volume in the Aldine Treatises in Modem Economics series, will be useful to all who are concerned with the analysis, development, and execution of aid programs.

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.

"The purpose of this book is to set forth the major problems for economic analysis which arise in the formulation of foreign-aid policies and to review critically the theoretical approaches to these problems which are found in the literature and are frequently reflected in the policies of foreign-assistance agencies."--Preface.

A response to the pressing need to address and clarify the substantial ambiguity within current literature, this edited volume aims to deepen readers’ understanding of the impact of foreign aid on development outcomes based on the latest findings in research over the past decade. Foreign aid has long been seen as one of two extremes: either beneficial or damaging, a blessing or a curse. Consequently, many readers perceive aid’s effectiveness based on the work of scholars who are assessing the impact of aid from one of two antithetical perspectives. This book takes a different approach, shedding light on recent research that can deepen our understanding of the complex relationship between aid and its aftereffects. Drawing from an extensive set of studies that have explored micro and macro impacts of foreign aid for recipient nations, chapter authors highlight more layered and nuanced findings, with a focus on donor characteristics, political motives, and an evaluation of aid projects and their effectiveness, including the differential impact based on type of aid. This volume is the first of its kind to unpack aid as a complex rather than a unitary concept and explore the wide areas of grey that have long enshrouded foreign aid.

Aid has worked in the past but can be made to work better in the future. This book offers important new research and will appeal to those working in economics, politics and development studies as well as to governmental and aid professionals.