The Short-Run Macroeconomics of Aid Inflows
The authors develop a tractable two-sector New Keynesian model to analyse the short-term effects of aid-financed fiscal expansions. The analysis distinguishes between spending the aid (increasing expenditures and/or cutting revenues) and absorbing the aid—using the aid to finance a higher current account deficit. The standard treatment of the transfer problem implicitly assumes spending equals absorption. Here, a policy mix that results in spending but not absorbing the aid, a common reaction, generates demand pressures and results in an increase in real interest rates. It can also lead to a temporary real depreciation. Certain features of low-income countries, such as limited domestic financial markets, make a real depreciation more likely. The analysis presented in the chapter can help understand the experience of Uganda in the early 2000s.