Foreign aid and domestic output in the long run

The principal argument of this paper is that the effect of aid on GDP depends on a trade-off that is country specific: aid has a direct positive effect through financing investment but an indirect effect through aggregate productivity that can be negative if aid exacerbates growth-retarding factors such as poor governance. Data for 59 developing countries over 1971–2003 are analysed to explore the trade-off and highlight the heterogeneous nature of the relationship between aid and output. We show that output, aid and investment comprise a cointegrated relation, and derive country specific estimates of the long run association between aid and output. These aid-output coefficients are, on average, negative but smaller than the positive investment-output coefficients. Insofar as aid is used to finance investment, the overall effect on output may therefore be positive. We also show that cross-country differences in the estimated long run aid-output coefficients can be explained mainly by cross-country differences in law and order, religious tensions and government size.     

Bringing cheer to a depressed economy — economic development in N. Ireland

In this, the first of two articles, the authors examine the particularly grim problems of the local economy in N. Ireland. They argue that such problems have to be understood in the context of N. Ireland's distinctive politics and administration. Following an assessment of economic development performance in recent decades, they conclude with a critical review of government strategies for the future. In the second article they intend to examine other local suggestions for economic policy, and to outline a “popular” alternative strategy.     

Foreign Direct Investment: Flows,Volatility, and the Impact on Growth*

This paper contributes to the literature on FDI and economic growth. We deviate from previous studies by introducing measures of the volatility of FDI inflows. As introduced into the model, these are predicted to have a negative effect on growth. We estimate the standard model using cross‐section, panel data, and instrumental variable techniques. Whilst all results are not entirely robust, there is a consistent finding that volatility of FDI has a negative impact on growth. The evidence for a positive effect of FDI levels on growth is not robust, nor is that for any effect of human capital.     

Do Workers in Africa Get a Wage Premium if Employed in Firms Owned by Foreigners?

Do firms owned by foreigners pay higher wages than locally ownedfirms for apparently equivalent workers? Do such benefits accrueto all or only certain types of workers? This paper uses dataon individual wages in manufacturing industry for five Africancountries in the early 1990s to address these questions. Wepresent two main findings. First, foreign ownership is associatedwith a 20–40% increase in individual wages (conditionalon age, tenure and education) on average. This is halved to8–23% if we take into account the fact that foreign-ownedfirms are larger and locate in high-wage sectors and regions.Secondly, there is a tendency in some countries for more skilledworkers (using occupation and education categories) to benefitmore from foreign ownership than less skilled workers and thisconclusion holds after accounting for the size distributionof foreign firms. We discuss, but cannot directly test, theplausibility of two explanations for these findings: (i) foreign-ownedfirms employ technologies that are more skill-biased than technologiesin local firms and (ii) skilled workers in foreign firms aremore effective in rent-sharing than other workers. We contendthat these explanations may not be mutually exclusive and, hence,cannot be empirically distinguished.     

企业绩效管理(EPM)全球发展动向

本文是Business Week．研究服务项目取得的成果。项目人员先后采访了50多家跨国企业的主管（其中，有42次采访了《财富》杂志500强公司的主管，每家公司的收入都超过了56亿美元；有22次采访了《财富》杂志1000强公司的主管，其收入从1．52亿美元到14亿美元不等）。研究揭示出这样一种明确而一致的观点：EPM已成为业界公认的用于评价和执行企业策略的实际机制。为什么是EPM呢？因为它通过使用技术，把各种衡量标准、方式方法和财务计划连接起来，从而能够在正确的时间，为正确的人员提供正确的信息；而且，它所采用的方式方法可以产生具有影响力的变化。[编者按]