IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejmac/v12y2012i1p1-36n31.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Composition of Government Spending

Author

Listed:
  • Chatterjee Santanu

    (University of Georgia)

  • Giuliano Paola

    (UCLA, Anderson School of Management)

  • Kaya Ilker

    (American University of Sharjah)

Abstract

This paper examines the link between foreign aid and the composition of government spending in aid-recipient countries. Two questions are addressed: (i) does foreign aid crowd out government spending in aid-recipient countries, and (ii) does the degree of fungibility vary across different categories of aid? Using a panel dataset of 67 countries for 1972-2000 we find that at the aggregate level about 70 percent of total aid is fungible. We also find that aid targeted for public investment crowds out about 80-90 percent of domestic government spending on public investment. Aid does not affect private investment, but has a strong positive impact on household consumption. The results are also robust to checks for causality. These findings are significant, since more than two-thirds of all aid flows to developing countries are tied to public investment projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Chatterjee Santanu & Giuliano Paola & Kaya Ilker, 2012. "Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Composition of Government Spending," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-36, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:12:y:2012:i:1:p:1-36:n:31
    DOI: 10.1515/1935-1690.2458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/1935-1690.2458
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/1935-1690.2458?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philipp Harms & Matthias Lutz, 2006. "Aid, Governance and Private Foreign Investment: Some Puzzling Findings for the 1990s," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 773-790, July.
    2. Chatterjee, Santanu & Sakoulis, Georgios & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2003. "Unilateral capital transfers, public investment, and economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1077-1103, December.
    3. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Aizenman, Joshua, 2010. "Aid volatility and poverty traps," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-7, January.
    4. C-J. Dalgaard & H. Hansen, 2001. "On Aid, Growth and Good Policies," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6), pages 17-41.
    5. Agénor, Pierre-Richard & Bayraktar, Nihal & El Aynaoui, Karim, 2008. "Roads out of poverty? Assessing the links between aid, public investment, growth, and poverty reduction," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 277-295, June.
    6. Mosley, Paul & Hudson, John & Horrell, Sara, 1987. "Aid, the Public Sector and the Market in Less Developed Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 616-641, September.
    7. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    8. Axel Dreher & Peter Nunnenkamp & Rainer Thiele, 2008. "Does Aid for Education Educate Children? Evidence from Panel Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 291-314, April.
    9. Pack, Howard & Pack, Janet Rothenberg, 1990. "Is Foreign Aid Fungible? The Case of Indonesia," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 188-194, March.
    10. Eric Werker & Faisal Z. Ahmed & Charles Cohen, 2009. "How Is Foreign Aid Spent? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 225-244, July.
    11. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Swaroop, Vinaya & Heng-fu, Zou, 1996. "The composition of public expenditure and economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 313-344, April.
    12. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    13. Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Mumtaz Hussain & Mr. Shaun K. Roache & Ms. Amber A Mahone & Mr. Tokhir N Mirzoev & Mr. Shekhar Aiyar, 2007. "The Macroeconomics of Scaling Up Aid: Lessons from Recent Experience," IMF Occasional Papers 2007/002, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Subramanian, Arvind, 2011. "Aid, Dutch disease, and manufacturing growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 106-118, January.
    15. Mark McGillivray & Simon Feeny & Niels Hermes & Robert Lensink, 2006. "Controversies over the impact of development aid: it works; it doesn't; it can, but that depends …," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(7), pages 1031-1050.
    16. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    17. Swaroop, Vinaya & Jha, Shikha & Sunil Rajkumar, Andrew, 2000. "Fiscal effects of foreign aid in a federal system of governance: The case of India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 307-330, September.
    18. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    19. Neanidis, Kyriakos C. & Varvarigos, Dimitrios, 2009. "The allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Theory and evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 447-462, December.
    20. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2007. "Foreign aid and economic growth: The role of flexible labor supply," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 507-533, September.
    21. Mr. Alexander Pivovarsky & Mr. Benedict J. Clements & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Mr. Erwin H Tiongson, 2003. "Foreign Aid and Revenue Response: Does the Composition of Aid Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2003/176, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Stephen Bond & Anke Hoeffler, 2001. "GMM Estimation of Empirical Growth Models," Economics Series Working Papers 2001-W21, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    23. Tavares, Jose, 2003. "Does foreign aid corrupt?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 99-106, April.
    24. Annen Kurt & Kosempel Stephen, 2009. "Foreign Aid, Donor Fragmentation, and Economic Growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, August.
    25. Gang, Ira N. & Ali Khan, Haider, 1990. "Foreign aid, taxes, and public investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1-2), pages 355-369, November.
    26. Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "Foreign aid and rent-seeking," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 437-461, August.
    27. Luis-Felipe Zanna & Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Tokhir N Mirzoev & Mr. Rafael A Portillo, 2010. "The Short-Run Macroeconomics of Aid Inflows: Understanding the Interaction of Fiscal and Reserve Policy," IMF Working Papers 2010/065, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Alesina, Alberto & Wacziarg, Romain, 1998. "Openness, country size and government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 305-321, September.
    29. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    30. C. S. Adam & S. A. O’Connell, 1999. "Aid, Taxation and Development in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 225-253, November.
    31. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    32. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan, 2008. "Donor policy rules and aid effectiveness," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1895-1920, June.
    33. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    34. Sajal Lahiri & Pascalis Raimondos‐Møller, 2004. "Donor Strategy under the Fungibility of Foreign Aid," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 213-231, July.
    35. Pack, Howard & Pack, Janet Rothenberg, 1993. "Foreign Aid and the Question of Fungibility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(2), pages 258-265, May.
    36. Buffie, Edward F. & O'Connell, Stephen A. & Adam, Christopher, 2010. "Fiscal inertia, donor credibility, and the monetary management of aid surges," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 287-298, November.
    37. Easterly, William, 1999. "The ghost of financing gap: testing the growth model used in the international financial institutions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 423-438, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chatterjee, Santanu & Giuliano, Paola & Kaya, Ilker, 2007. "Where Has All the Money Gone? Foreign Aid and the Quest for Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 2858, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    3. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    4. Łukasz Marć, 2017. "The Impact of Aid on Total Government Expenditures: New Evidence on Fungibility," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 627-663, August.
    5. Łukasz Marć, 2017. "The Impact of Aid on Total Government Expenditures: New Evidence on Fungibility," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 627-663, August.
    6. Boriana Yontcheva & Mrs. Nadia Masud, 2005. "Does Foreign Aid Reduce Poverty? Empirical Evidence from Nongovernmental and Bilateral Aid," IMF Working Papers 2005/100, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Sharri Byron, 2012. "Examining Foreign Aid Fungibility in Small Open Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 675-712, September.
    8. Angeles, Luis & Neanidis, Kyriakos C., 2009. "Aid effectiveness: the role of the local elite," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 120-134, September.
    9. Łukasz Marć, 2015. "The impact of aid on total government expenditures: New evidence on fungibility," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Fiseha Gebregziabher & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, 2014. "Social Spending and Aggregate Welfare in Developing and Transition Economies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Gebregziabher, Fiseha & Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel, 2014. "Social spending and aggregate welfare in developing and transition economies," WIDER Working Paper Series 082, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Lahiri, Sajal & Younas, Javed, 2011. "Should Easier Access to International Credit Replace Foreign Aid?," IZA Discussion Papers 6024, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2012. "Aid, Growth and Devolution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1723-1749.
    14. Tejashree Sayanak & Sajal Lahiri, 2009. "Foreign Aid as Prize: Incentives for a Pro-Poor Policy," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(s1), pages 403-415, August.
    15. Donaubauer, Julian & Herzer, Dierk & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2012. "Does aid for education attract foreign investors? An empirical analysis for Latin America," Kiel Working Papers 1806, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Neanidis, Kyriakos C. & Varvarigos, Dimitrios, 2009. "The allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Theory and evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 447-462, December.
    17. Kaya, Ozgur & Kaya, Ilker & Gunter, Lewell F., 2008. "The Impact of Agricultural Aid on Agricultural Sector Growth," 2008 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2008, Dallas, Texas 6743, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    18. Carter, Patrick, 2017. "Aid econometrics: Lessons from a stochastic growth model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 216-232.
    19. Annen Kurt & Kosempel Stephen, 2009. "Foreign Aid, Donor Fragmentation, and Economic Growth," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, August.
    20. Lukasz Marc, 2012. "New Evidence on Fungibility at the Aggregate Level," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-083/2, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejmac:v:12:y:2012:i:1:p:1-36:n:31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.