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Publications

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• Menard and Gary (2017). Aid, Trande and Migration: How do Bilateral Flows interact? The World Economy
  
  Abstract: This paper takes as its point of departure the European Commission’s position, set out in 2005, which laid clear emphasis on aid and trade as tools for controlling immigration. We attempt to subject this position to empirical investigation. We exploit data on bilateral aid, trade and migration flows between developed and developing countries, for the period 2000–2010, adopting an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity issue due to potential simultaneity bias. Our results establish that increasing aid and trade with developing countries is likely to fail to contain immigration, at least in the short run. The pattern of results is consistent with the hypothesis that promoting development in migrant-sending countries, or cooperating with such countries to control migration outflows, is not sufficient to lessen immigration. Increasing visa restrictions and controls at borders is generally controversial; still, the results imply that policymakers cannot attain their short-term immigration goals with the so-called “smart solutions” of aid and trade.
  
  Keywords: Aid allocations, Migration, Unemployment.
  JEL codes: F22, F4, F35, O1
  
   

• Diebolt, Perrin and Menard (2017). Behind the Fertility-Education Nexus: What Triggered the French Development Process? European Review of Economic History, 2017
  
  Abstract: The education-fertility relationship is a central element of the models explaining the transition to sustained economic growth. But many determinants of this relationship have not yet received more systematic attention. In this paper, we apply a three-stages least squares estimator on French county-level data, including newly collected data, to better understand the causal effects running from education to fertility, and vice versa. We put forward the hypothesis that a decrease in fertility was strongly associated with greater schooling in France during the nineteenth century. Besides, we emphasize the relevance of taking account of gender equality and family organization when explaining the education-fertility relationship.
  
  Keywords: Education, Family, Fertility, Growth Theory, France
  JEL Classification: N33, O10, I25, J1
  
   

• Menard and Weill (2016). Understanding the Link Between Aid and Corruption: A Causality Analysis. Economic Systems
  
  Abstract: This paper addresses the direction of the causal link between aid and corruption. We perform Granger-causality tests in a dynamic GMM panel framework to evaluate the sign and direction of causality between aid and corruption on a dataset of 71 developing countries over the period 1996-2009. We find no significant causal relation between aid and corruption running in both directions. Our results are robust to various controls.
  
  Keywords: Aid; Corruption; Granger causality
  JEL-codes: F3, D7
  
   

• Menard (2014). Do natural resources condition the aid-governance relationship? Evidence from Africa, Economics Bulletin, vol. 34, issue 2, 317-1326

  
  Abstract: This paper offers some evidence on why the governance effect of foreign aid is shadowy in African countries. The evidence suggests that the aid-governance relationship is dependent on the type of aid allocation and on the size of natural resources rents held by the recipient country. A dynamic panel data analysis on African countries over the 1997 – 2008 period reveals that (i) foreign aid improves governance if and only if aid is allocated by multilateral agencies; and (ii) the effect of multilateral aid is the stronger the less the recipient country is dependent on natural resources, in particular on oil resources. The combination of multilateral aid and oil rents independence favour the development of good governance in Africa.
   

  Keywords: Governance; Multilateral aid; Natural resources
  JEL-codes: F3, D7

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• Menard and Weill (2014). Is aid efficient? Revue d’Economie Politique, vol. 124, 613-624
  
  Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between aid and macroeconomic efficiency. It contributes to the understanding of the puzzling aid-growth linkage. We apply a stochastic frontier approach to estimate macroeconomic efficiency for a panel of 67 countries over the period 1985–2010. We use GMM dynamic panel techniques to analyse the relation between aid and macroeconomic efficiency. We find that aid fosters efficiency. This beneficial effect is found for bilateral aid and multilateral aid. We also show that the favourable impact of aid on efficiency increases with the extent of democracy and the macroeconomic stability of recipient countries. 
  
  Keywords: Aid; Stochastic frontier approach; Efficiency
  JEL-codes: F3, O4

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