Aid Dependence and the Quality of Governance A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis

July 2000 - Do higher levels of aid erode the very quality of governance poor countries need for sustained and rapid income growth? Good governance-in the form of institutions that establish predictable, impartial, and consistently enforced rules for investors-is crucial for the sustained and rapid...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Knack, Stephen
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 1999
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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100 1 |a Knack, Stephen 
245 0 0 |a Aid Dependence and the Quality of Governance  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b A Cross-Country Empirical Analysis  |c Knack, Stephen 
260 |a Washington, D.C  |b The World Bank  |c 1999 
300 |a 44 p. 
653 |a Income Growth 
653 |a Macroeconomics and Economic Growth 
653 |a Income 
653 |a Health, Nutrition and Population 
653 |a Good Governance 
653 |a Social Protections and Labor 
653 |a Economic Growth 
653 |a Growth 
653 |a Education 
653 |a Corruption 
653 |a Accountability 
653 |a Aid Dependence 
653 |a Private Sector Development 
653 |a Development Economics and Aid Effectiveness 
653 |a Disability 
653 |a Policy Implications 
653 |a Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures 
653 |a Governance Indicators 
653 |a Institutional Quality 
653 |a National Governance 
653 |a Governance 
653 |a Country Data 
653 |a Natural Resources 
653 |a Emerging Markets 
653 |a Bureaucracy 
653 |a Bureaucratic Quality 
653 |a Per Capita Incomes 
653 |a Reverse Causality 
653 |a Foreign Aid 
653 |a Rule Of Law 
653 |a Economic Theory and Research 
653 |a Gender and Health 
653 |a School Health 
653 |a Institutions 
653 |a Gender 
700 1 |a Knack, Stephen 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b WOBA  |a World Bank E-Library Archive 
856 4 0 |u http://elibrary.worldbank.org/content/workingpaper/10.1596/1813-9450-2396  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a July 2000 - Do higher levels of aid erode the very quality of governance poor countries need for sustained and rapid income growth? Good governance-in the form of institutions that establish predictable, impartial, and consistently enforced rules for investors-is crucial for the sustained and rapid growth of per capita incomes in poor countries. Aid dependence can undermine institutional quality by weakening accountability, encouraging rent seeking and corruption, fomenting conflict over control of aid funds, siphoning off scarce talent from the bureaucracy, and alleviating pressures to reform inefficient policies and institutions. Knack's analyses of cross-country data provide evidence that higher aid levels erode the quality of governance, as measured by indexes of bureaucratic quality, corruption, and the rule of law. This negative relationship strengthens when instruments for aid are used to correct for potential reverse causality. It is robust to changes in the sample and to several alternative forms of estimation. Recent studies have concluded that aid's impact on economic growth and infant mortality is conditional on policy and institutional gaps. Knack's results indicate that the size of the institutional gap itself increases with aid levels. This paper-a product of Regulation and Competition Policy, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to identify the determinants of good governance and institutions conducive to long-run economic development. The author may be contacted at sknack@worldbank.org