This paper surveys five decades of empirical research on the macroeconomic impact of aid, looking mainly at studies examining the link between aid and growth. It argues that studies dating until the late 1990s produced either contradictory or inconclusive results. Aid either worked, or it didn't, according to this research. The paper then highlights a major shift in the literature that coincided with the release of the World Bank's Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn't and Why. Practically, all research published since that report agrees with its general finding that aid works to the extent that in its absence, growth would be lower. One controversy may therefore have been settled. Yet, as shown in this paper, the report has set-off an intense debate over the context in which aid works. That debate centres on whether the effectiveness of these inflows depends on the policy regime of recipient countries. Some possible avenues through which the heat might be taken out of this debate are considered. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article investigates the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in Papua New Guinea (PNG) using time-series data for the period 1965 to 1999. Following the most recent literature, the article examines whether aid effectiveness is conditional on levels of economic policy and governance. An empirical model is estimated using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration proposed by Pesaran and Shin [1995]. Results provide little evidence that aid and its various components have contributed to economic growth in PNG. There is some evidence that aid is more effective during periods when the country has undertaken a World Bank Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). An alternative interpretation is that a SAP may be more effective at spurring growth when supported by foreign aid.

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