Research
Nexus between Foreign Aid and Economic Growth: Evidences from Bangladesh
Bangladesh receives about $56.5 billion foreign aid during 1971-2012 periods. This paper analyzes 33 years data for 1980-2012 periods to show the effects of foreign aid on the economic growth of Bangladesh. This study estimates eight models including three for last three decades (1980-1990, 1991-2001, 2002-2012), four for the four different government periods, namely, Military government period (1982-1990), BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) government (1991-1995, 2002- 2006) , BAL (Bangladesh Awami League) government (1996- 2001, 2009-2012) and the Whole Democratic government period (1991-2012) and one for entire period (1980-2012). This research finds that, foreign aid has positive effect on the economic growth of Bangladesh and it is statistically significant in two models. The contribution of aid to GDP is falling overtime. This paper also reveals that the aid generates decreasing returns because of capacity constraint of Bangladeshi institutions to utilize foreign aid effectively. This finding is consistent with previous findings of different researches.
Poverty Reduction during 1971-2013 Periods:Success and its Recent Trends in Bangladesh
This paper analyses data on poverty for 1971-2013 periods and finds that, Bangladesh reduces national poverty by 55.82 percent during these periods. Moreover, nearly 44 percent people are found extremely poor who earn less than $1.25 per day and 77 percent people are moderately poor who earn less than $2 per day. Though, absolute income poverty declines but income inequality rises by 30 percent in these periods. However, different international indexes disclose that, Bangladesh also reduces human poverty. Bangladesh is no longer the member of ‘alarmingly hunger countries’ and will become the member of ‘Medium human development countries’ by 2014. Besides, about 58 percent people are found multi-dimensionally poor, who suffer from overlapping deprivations in health, education and standard of living. Finally, this paper makes a comparison between Bangladesh and other south Asian countries and finds that, Bangladesh has the highest level of poverty followed by India in this region
