This paper investigates whether untied aid inflows cause donor exports to increase, reflecting creation of goodwill by the donor in a recipient country. The causation could, however, be in the opposite direcri'on, i.e. it could be that donors with strong export performance choose to give high aid, or it could proceed in both direcri'ons simultaneously. Using time-series data on Canadian aid and exports to 35 developing couniries we investigate the direction and sign of the causal relations. W e conclude that they are not all of one type. Results vary across the samples based on region, income, and ties to Canada. Cet article examine si les exportations de certains pays augement en fonction de l'aide inconditionnelle qu'ils apportent aux pays en ddveloppement, c'est-d-dire en fonction de leurs bonnes itentions, ou si, inversement, leur aide augmentent seulement en fonction de leurs exportations, ou encore, si les relations causales varient simultandment dans les deux sens. A partir d'une sdrie de donndes de l'aide canadienne et de ses exportations rt 35 pays en ddveloppement, cette recherche vient rt conclure que les relations causales ne sont pas de sens uniques. Elles varient d'un pays rt l'autre, selon les rdgions dans lesquelles lespays appartiennent, les revenus qu'ils ont, et enfin, selon les liens qu'ils maintiennent avec le Canada.

Three questions regarding the relationship between untied assistance and donor country exports are investigated. First, do untied aid flows cause donor country exports to increase, reflecting the goodwill of the recipient towards the donor? Second, does strong export performance financially enable or politically encourage the donor country to increase its level of untied aid to the recipient? Third, does causality proceed in both directions simultaneously? Using German data for the period 1973-1995, results vary across subsamples defined according to the recipient countries' region, income and ties to Germany.

Marital dissolutions occur for a variety of reasons. Among low income families, the added stress of inadequate earnings, intermittent job spells, and high unemployment may contribute to the decision to end a marriage. One approach to end poverty and marital instability is to give income assistance to the poor. At the same time, cash transfers might foster family breakups, intentionally or otherwise. For example, if the welfare system is designed such that individuals are better off living separately than together, there will be a financial incentive to split. The effect of income transfers on family structure is theoretically ambiguous. On the one hand, low income families may become more stable if stress factors associated with low earnings, intermittent job spells and the like are lessened by the receipt of assistance. On the other hand, unstable marriages held together strictly for economic convenience may have their bonds weakened if individuals, when separated, are eligible for support. Consequently, whether income assistance engenders, on balance, effects which are stabilising or destabilising is an empirical question which depends upon the specific population group and the assistance program under consideration. This paper employs microdata from MINCOME (Canada’s experimental test of guaranteed income) to examine the effect of various income transfers on family dissolution. Employing a path model, we find that family income level is principally an intervening rather than a direct factor in determining whether or not a family will stay intact. Our results suggest that whether or not the male head has a stable work pattern, and whether or not the female head works at all, or earns more than her spouse, are more direct contributors to marital instability than the level of family income itself.

Unlike earlier studies, this paper argues that the relevant determinants of East Asian integration ought to be gravity (proximity and size of the regional economics). Using a gravity model of 1975-95 merchandise trade flows, strong evidence was found by East Asian economies integrating and interacting like never before. Interestingly, the most recent evidence also suggests that Japan is in danger of losing its place at the centre of this potentially self-sustaining economic system. In other words, the East Asian situation is still unfolding as the regional economies experience a dynamic process of changing comparative advantage which is enhancing their competitiveness against one another, as well as against other developed economies, including Japan.

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