Aid,Policy and Growth: Does Aid Modality Matter?

This paper contributes to the empirics of aid and growth by investigating whether aid modality matters in explaining its effectiveness. For this purpose, we include the four main aid modalities (project aid, financial program aid, technical assistance grants, and food aid) as explanatory variables in an endogenous growth model. We find that project aid affects positively and significantly growth, albeit with diminishing returns. Our results also show that financial program aid generally impacts on growth negatively, while the impacts of technical assistance and food aid are statistically insignificant. Moreover, we find that climate-related conditions influence the effect of project aid. JEL no.  C2, F3     

Confucius Institutes and FDI flows from China to Africa

Is the establishment of new Confucius Institutes (CIs) in African countries motivated by resource seeking? We focus on uncovering new empirical evidence about the establishment of CIs, whether they are related to natural resources, and the extent to which the establishment of new CIs and Chinese foreign aid flows affect one another. Whereas Chinese aid flows do indeed appear to be empirically associated with African countries' natural resources, the evidence we report suggests that CIs are established based on a distinct set of motives. We find that CIs, Chinese foreign aid flows to Africa and natural resources have joint predictive power on the subsequent year's Chinese FDI outflows. CIs are not, however, positively associated with the subsequent year's aid flows. And aid flows are not positively associated with the subsequent year's expected number of CIs. We interpret this as evidence that CIs reflect an economically significant expression of Chinese soft power. The goals underlying the expression of this soft power are not subsumed by natural resource seeking and are not easily compressed to a single dimension. The data show that CIs and aid flows are not positive predictors of each other and are not subsumed (i.e., made to disappear) by the inclusion of controls for natural resources. Thus, the presence of a CI reveals independent, novel, and economically significant information about future trade flows that cannot be explained away by differences in resources or other control variables commonly found in empirical models of trade flows. The empirical evidence suggests that CIs are indeed an effective instrument for increasing China's soft power but that this soft power is not motivated solely (if at all) by resource seeking.     

Foreign aid,government behaviour,and fiscal policy in Papua New Guinea

The paper explores a number of long standing questions surrounding how foreign aid has influenced the fiscal behaviour of the PNG Government. This includes whether grant aid has encouraged the PNG government to be less fiscally responsible and accumulate higher levels of foreign debt; whether grant aid has tended to lower the PNG government's domestic revenue raising efforts; whether grant aid has drawn government expenditures away from key service delivery sectors; and whether budget support and project and program aid have had differential effects with respect to any of the foregoing questions. The analysis reveals several important insights regarding the interplay between foreign aid and public sector fiscal behaviour including evidence that grant aid has been an important source of debt reduction during this period. However, grant aid has tended to erode the domestic tax base, which has limited the government's ability to increase aggregate expenditure levels. Evidence is also found that suggests a significant portion of budget support was spent on key development sectors, although it also undermined domestic revenue collection. A number of policy implications follow.     

The Effects of Financial Statement Information Proximity and Feedback on Cash Flow Forecasts*

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), in their joint Financial Statement Presentation project, are reconsidering the basic format of financial statements. The Boards’ preliminary discussions related to this joint project indicate that they intend to modify the required financial statements to increase the proximity of performance‐related information for each reported period. We provide evidence related to this potential change by investigating the effects of financial statement information proximity on investors’ ability to learn the forecast‐relevant time series properties of reported cash flows and accruals. We also examine the role feedback plays in this relationship. Our experimental results suggest that nonprofessional investors are able to more quickly learn the relation between current period cash flows and accruals and future cash flow realizations when financial statement information is presented in a single statement rather than separated into two statements. In addition, we find that nonprofessional investors exhibit lower levels of absolute forecast errors and less forecast dispersion when financial statement information is unified into a single statement. Finally, we provide evidence that nonprofessional investors who receive extensive outcome feedback on a single page initially learn more quickly and later, after learning has leveled off, accurately forecast more consistently than do investors who receive extensive or limited feedback spread across two pages. Overall, our results provide evidence on the effectiveness of alternate financial statement presentation formats and the potential usefulness of receiving more extensive feedback.     

Does Aid Improve Public Service Delivery?

The expected increase in aid to Africa will put a big challenge for public service delivery. This paper provides an analysis of the effects of the volume and volatility of aid on education, health, water and sanitation outcomes, taking also into account the institutions related to public service delivery, including freedom of press, corruption, and decentralization, using a simultaneous equation model. Overall the share of Official Development Assistance (ODA) that is provided for education and health seems to have a positive impact on outcomes in these sectors, whereas total aid seems to be negatively associated. Aid volatility is associated with better outcomes in sanitation, water, and infant mortality, contrary to expectations. JEL no. H4, H5, H7, I1, I2, L9, O2     

Supplier density and at-home care use in Japan: Evidence from a micro-level survey on long-term care receivers

Following the introduction of the long-term care insurance scheme and deregulation of the market for at-home care services, Japan experienced a substantial increase in expenditure on care for the elderly. Using household-level survey data, we empirically examine whether the increase in care expenditure is associated with supplier density springing from the rise in the number of care providers following deregulation. We provide weak evidence that supplier density in the at-home care market is positively correlated with probability to use care or expenditure on care. Moreover, we find no link between the share of for-profit providers and the demand for at-home care services.     

政府支出、金融发展、对外开放与企业投资

本文考察政府支出、金融发展与对外开放对企业投资的影响。整体上,政府支出显著的促进了企业的投资,而金融发展和对外开放程度对于企业投资则存在"挤出"效应,但是较高的金融发展水平和对外开放程度,提升了企业投资的效率;在东部地区,影响程度较基于全国的检验结果更显著;中部地区的政府支出和金融发展促进了企业投资,但其效率较低;西部地区的对外开放与政府支出并未显著影响企业投资;非东部地区的地方国企在对外开放中投资增加更为显著,而民营企业在投资机会的把握上体现了更高的效率。     

对整合新疆财政支农资金途径的探讨

支农资金整合是当前财政支农资金管理中的一项重要工作。以项目为平台,以县为单位整合上级政府和县本级的支农资金是资金整合工作的基本思路。本文沿着这个思路提出了从农村经济规划着手到项目选择,再到资金整合的基本工作框架,供新疆资金整合试点工作参考。     

What determines the success or failure of german bilateral financial aid?

This paper explores the causes of success or failure of German bilateral financial aid, using data on 1,003 Financial Cooperation (FC) projects and programs performed by the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). The authors find that the success or failure of financial aid loans disbursed under FC depends on project characteristics and macroeconomic conditions in the recipient country. Supervision time is also highly negatively correlated with the probability of success. While the relationship disappears once endogeneity is taken into account, the existence of an institutional bias toward a disproportionate allocation of supervision resources in unsuccessful projects cannot be rejected. These results show that some recent evidence on multilateral policybased aid holds also for the case of German bilateral project-based aid.     

Foreign aid and fiscal response: Does aid disaggregation matter?

Foreign Aid and Fiscal Response: Does Aid Disaggregation Matter? —The present paper constitutes a new approach in the aid-effectiveness literature in two important respects. Firstly, it develops and then tests a model of foreign aid and fiscal response, which, for the first time in the aid-effectiveness literature, embraces the aiddisaggregation issue; we do this by disaggregating aid flows into three main components, namely programme aid, project aid and technical assistance, and by subsequently estimating our model for two countries, India and Kenya. Secondly, on the modelling front, we improve on earlier work in this area by using an appropriate specification for the recipient-country government’s welfare function, with significant positive implications for the empirical findings obtained. This new approach adopted in the paper and the empirical results obtained may have important implications for a better understanding of the fiscal impact of aid in aid-recipient countries.     

Human capital investment in children: An empirical study of household child education expenditure in China, 2007 and 2011

Household education expenditure is an important component of human capital investment in children. In China, the rising child education expenditure and the subsequent financial burden on families have attracted much research and policy attention in the recent years. Using 2007 and 2011 data from the Urban Household Education Surveys, our empirical study provides new evidence on the education expenditure level, ratio of expenditure to household income, and inequality in this expenditure. We also elucidate changes in China's household education expenditure and explore factors associated with such changes. From the analysis, we obtain the following findings. First, education expenditure incurred outside the school significantly contributes to increasing household education expenditure. Second, compulsory education programs are effective in curbing in-school education expenditure; however, it does not prevent the rapidly increasing education investment outside school. Third, education expenditure disproportionally increases with family income. In other words, a larger share of the income earned by lower income families is spent on children's education, compared to higher income families.     

人口老龄化对社会保障支出的影响研究

我国人口老龄化态势日益严峻,这必将成为社会保障支出增加的重要推手。文章利用2008—2018年省际面板数据,从老龄化程度、老龄化速度和社会负担三个角度测度人口老龄化,采用系统聚类方法将我国30个省份(不包括西藏和港澳台地区)划分为四类人口老龄化区域,借助固定效应模型深入剖析人口老龄化对社会保障支出水平的影响。研究表明:从全国和四类人口老龄化区域来看,老龄化程度均提升了财政社会保障支出水平和社会保障总支出水平,而老龄化速度则对社会保障支出水平的上升表现为阻碍作用;社会负担促进了全国和四类区域财政社会保障支出水平的提高,但由于各省份经济水平或政策措施的差异,对社会保障总支出水平的影响存在区域间的异质性。     

优化我国财政支出结构探讨

我国财政支出总体趋势与经济发展进程是基本同步的,但我国财政支出结构目前仍存在一定的问题,还不能完全适应新时期经济与社会发展的要求,如经济建设支出比重偏高、社会公共事业投入不足、行政管理费增长过快、国防费比重偏低等。因此应当调整经济建设支出,强化社会文教支出,深化行政机构改革,控制行政经费的过快增长,增加国防资金投入,推进国防现代化建设。     

Does an R&D tax credit affect R&D expenditure? The Japanese R&D tax credit reform in 2003

To what extent does a tax credit affect firms’ R&D activity? What are the mechanisms? This paper examines the effect of R&D tax credits on firms’ R&D expenditure by exploiting the variation across firms in the changes in the eligible tax credit rate between 2000 and 2003. Estimating the first-difference equation of the linear R&D model by panel GMM, we find the estimated coefficient of an interaction term between the eligible tax credit rate and the debt-to-asset ratio is positive and significant, indicating that the effect of tax credit is significantly larger for firms with relatively large outstanding debts. Conducting counterfactual experiments, we found that the aggregate R&D expenditure in 2003 would have been lower by 3.0–3.4 percent if there had been no tax credit reform in 2003, where 0.3–0.6 percent is attributable to the effect of financial constraint, and that the aggregate R&D expenditure would have been larger by 3.1–3.9 percent if there had been no cap on the amount of tax credits, where 0.3–0.8 percent is attributable to relaxing the financial constraint of firms with outstanding debts.     

我国教育财政支出结构分析及政策调整

我国教育财政支出结构低度化主要表现在两个方面：第一,教育财政投入总量不足,第二,教育财政投入结构失衡;它造成了我国教育发展滞后,居民受教育机会不均等、地区居民素质差异大等问题。因此,建立财政对教育投入的长效机制,提高财政教育支出的占比,加大对中西部教育财政的投入并提高中等师范教育和职业教育支持力度是优化教育财政的必然选择。     

Aid-for-trade facilitation

‘Aid for Trade’ is an ongoing and high-profile discussion associated with the Doha negotiations of the World Trade Organization. It also relates to questions of how best to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Questions remain, however, about whether foreign aid spent on trade facilitation increases trade flows of developing countries. Does it work differently from aid in general? Using detailed data on aid flows from the OECD, the analysis here estimates the relationship between specific types of aid and trade flows, both globally and of the aid recipients. The findings indicate that aid spent on promoting trade is positively associated with global trade. For most types of such aid-for-trade facilitation, it is relatively more strongly associated with recipient exports than their imports. In contrast ‘other’ types of aid are more strongly associated with recipient imports. Based on elasticities estimated over 16 years of trade and aid data for 40 donor countries and about 170 country trading pairs, our results suggest that a 1% increase in aid-for-trade facilitation (of about US220 million in 2008) correlates to about US 220 million in 2008) correlates to about US 290 million of additional exports from the aid receiving countries.     

Foreign Aid and Regime Change: A Role for Donor Intent

This paper uses data from the AidData project to analyze the association between foreign aid and the likelihood of democratization in aid recipients. Previous studies have argued that aid can entrench dictatorships, making a transition less likely. I find evidence that the relationship between aid and democratization depends on characteristics of the aid donor. During the period from 1992 to 2007, aid from democratic donors is often found to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of a democratic transition. This is consistent with a scenario in which aid promotes democratization and/or a situation in which democratic donors reward countries that take steps in a democratic direction. In either case, it suggests that democratic donors use scarce aid resources to encourage democracy. During the same period, aid from authoritarian donors exhibits a negative relationship with democratization. This suggests that the source of funding matters, with donor preferences regarding democracy helping to determine the link between aid and democratization.     

Audit‐Firm Tenure and the Quality of Financial Reports*

This study examines whether the length of the relationship between a company and an audit firm (audit‐firm tenure) is associated with financial‐reporting quality. Using two proxies for financial‐reporting quality and a sample of Big 6 clients matched on industry and size, we find that relative to medium audit‐firm tenures of four to eight years, short audit‐firm tenures of two to three years are associated with lower‐quality financial reports. In contrast, we find no evidence of reduced financial‐reporting quality for longer audit‐firm tenures of nine or more years. Overall, our results provide empirical evidence pertinent to the recurring debate regarding mandatory audit‐firm rotation — a debate that has, to date, relied on anecdotal evidence and isolated cases.     

Foreign aid as a promotional strategy

Developed countries are motivated by several forces when allocating aid to developing countries. The forces could be humanitarian in one country, and commercial self-interests in another. The principal objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of aid as a promotional strategy for trade, and to investigate whether major donor countries are optimally allocating their aid resources to increase their export and total trade. Models were developed to explore the effectiveness of aid as a promotional instrument for exports and total trade. Donor exports and total trade were expressed as functions of aid, per capita GNP of the recipient country, and aid from competing donors. The study showed that exports and total trade responded to total expected aid contributions and per capita GNP of the recipient countries. Also, all donors, but one, were maximizing the returns to aid, given the level of trade with recipient countries and will be reluctant to increase aid flows, given the current trade level.     

基于ARMA模型的我国政府行政成本支出研究(1978—2009)

为抵御百年罕见的金融危机,我国财政赤字预算陡然增加,经济面临前所未有的严峻考验,确保政府行政部门开支不再超常增长对平安度过巨额赤字周期至关重要。文章针对1978--2009年中国政府行政管理支出数据,进行了时间序列分析,研究证明ARMA（1,2）模型适合中国政府行政管理支出建模;进而对政府成本进行预测,并提出了控制政府成本的相关建议,对控制其增长规模具有重要的现实意义。