Anne Boschini

Resource Curse or not : A Question of Appropriability

This paper shows that whether natural resources are good or bad for a country’s development crucially depends on the interaction between institutional setting and the type of resources possessed by the country. Some natural resources are, for economical and technical reasons, more likely to cause problems such as rent-seeking and conflicts than others. This potential problem can, however, be countered by good institutional quality. In contrast to the traditional resource curse hypothesis, we show the impact of natural resources on economic growth to be non-monotonic in institutional quality. Countries rich in minerals are cursed only if they have low quality institutions, while the curse is reversed if institutions are sufficiently good.

Foreign aid: An instrument for fighting communism?

Abstract In this paper, we test the argument that the sizeable reduction in aggregate aid levels in the 1990s was due to the end of the Cold War. We test two different models using a dynamic econometric specification on a panel of 17 donor countries, spanning the years 1970–97. We find aid to be positively related to military expenditures in the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, but not in the 1990s, suggesting that the reductions in aid disbursements are driven by the disappearance of an important motive for aid. We also study the effect on aid allocation, but here we do not find any robust effects of the end of the Cold War.

Foreign Aid: An Instrument for Fighting Poverty or Communism?

In this paper, we argue that the sizeable reduction in aggregate aid levels in the 1990s was due to the end of the Cold war. We use a dynamic econometric specification to test this hypothesis on a panel of 17 donor countries, spanning the years 1970-1997. We find aid to be positively related to military expenditures in the former Eastern bloc, and that the substantial drop in these expenditures can indeed explain the reduction in aid in the 1990s. We also find that aid allocation has become less strategic in the 1990s.

Trading off or having it all? Completed fertility and mid-career earnings of Swedish men and women

Earnings in mid-career and children are two fundamental outcomes of the life-choices of men and women. Both require time and other resources and reflect the accumulated priorities of individuals and couples. We explore how these outcomes have changed for Swedish men and women born 1945-1962 by documenting changes in education, assortative mating patterns, completed fertility and mid-career earnings. We find an overall increasing inequality in career and family outcomes of men, reflecting a rise in the family-career complementarity. For women, the family-career trade-off has eased for non-professionals, and there appears to be a convergence in the life-choices of women across education groups. Despite these different developments for men and women, we find that within-family specialization, measured by the average spousal earnings contribution, is remarkably stable through the period.

Nordic Economic Policy Review 2018: Increasing Income Inequality in the Nordics

The contributions document how income inequality in the Nordics in various dimensions have increased over recent decades. These developments are put in an international context. Developments in Den ...