On the Optimal Timing of Foreign Aid

Abstract

We offer a dynamic formulation of the aid process, in which questions of timing are central. It is shown that in most cases it is optimal to give the aid partly in a lump, at the outset, and partly as a flow, over time. However, if the donor and recipient cooperate, stock and flow aid may be of opposite sign. It is shown also that when marginal utility is of constant elasticity, the rate of flow of aid increases (decreases) if and only if the initial world stock of capital is less than (greater than) its steady-state value.