THE GLOBE INVEST

The impact of Brexit on EU aid The different scenarios envisaged under Brexit lead to different consequences for EU development cooperation. These can be classified in three ways: financial, political and operational.  We understand the financial impact to imply Brexit’s effect on total aid funds (in absolute terms) channelled by each stakeholder (the UK or EU institutions, for instance). The political impact of Brexit refers to the donating influence or reputation of a country, or union. This can be measured by using the Elcano Global Presence Index and some features of international aid such as:  (1) the share of global aid disbursed by countries or unions;  (2) the positions of countries and unions in donors’ rankings (by volume of disbursements);  (3) their participation in the multilateral systems;  (4) their relative effort, measured by aid as a proportion of their economies; and  (5) the extent of their presence, through ODA, in differe...

1. Introduction  Given the potential havoc and destruction caused by hurricanes, the common fascination with these generally unpredictable events is not surprising. For instance, the unfolding destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, estimated by Pielke et al (2008) to have caused over 80 US billion dollars in damages in Louisiana and Mississippi alone, was followed on television by millions worldwide. Worryingly in this regard is that there appears to be an increasing trend in the number and strength of hurricanes over the last decade  1  , which some argue is linked to global warming. 2 Moreover, the regions directly affected, i.e., coastal areas, are, at least in the US, those where a large and growing part of total economic activity is located and hence the regions that are also driving a substantial portion of national economic growth. 3 Thus, accurately assessing how economies are likely to be affected by striking hurricanes, both at the local ...

  I. INTRODUCTION    One of the most intractable economic problems for poor countries has been the high price or outright unavailability of credit in rural communities. Primarily because of weak institutional infrastructure in rural areas, formal sector banks have faced seemingly insuperable information asymmetries and consequently have experienced persistently high costs and default rates. Screening potential borrowers, monitoring borrower behavior after loans are granted, and enforcing credit agreements are all extraordinarily costly where documented credit histories do not exist, businesses are very small, and legal systems are undeveloped, unreliable, or inaccessible. To these difficulties, formal sector lenders have often responded by engaging in “credit rationing,” leaving a large number of would-be borrowers without access to institutional credit. Although local moneylenders have sometimes been willing to fill the gap left by formal sector banks, rates charge...