IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v56y2015icp75-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financing growth through foreign aid and private foreign loans: Nonlinearities and complementarities

Author

Listed:
  • Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu
  • Lahiri, Sajal
  • Younas, Javed

Abstract

Are the growth consequences of foreign aid and foreign private loans different for the recipient nations? In this study, we analyze in a unified way, how these two instruments affect economic growth of 131 developing nations over the period 1996–2010. We find that there are diminishing returns to foreign aid, while there are increasing returns to foreign loans. Using these estimated non-linearities, we find a critical level of international financial transfer, where the marginal effect of foreign aid is larger than that of loans if and only if the transfer (loans or foreign aid) is below this critical level. In addition, we analyze the interaction between these two types of transfers, and find evidence of complementarity. Disaggregation of aid into grants and concessional loans suggests that it is in fact the former that exhibits concave relationship with growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Lahiri, Sajal & Younas, Javed, 2015. "Financing growth through foreign aid and private foreign loans: Nonlinearities and complementarities," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 75-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:56:y:2015:i:c:p:75-96
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2015.04.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560615000662
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2015.04.005?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. Alesina, Alberto & Dollar, David, 2000. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 33-63, March.
    2. Rajan, Raghuram G & Zingales, Luigi, 1998. "Financial Dependence and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 559-586, June.
    3. Patrick Guillaumont & Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney, 2007. "Big Push versus Absorptive Capacity. How to reconcile the Two Approaches," Post-Print hal-00204840, HAL.
    4. Dudley, Leonard M, 1979. "Foreign Aid and the Theory of Alliances," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(4), pages 564-571, November.
    5. Marshall Burke & John Dykema & David Lobell & Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath, 2010. "Climate and Civil War: Is the Relationship Robust?," NBER Working Papers 16440, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Papaioannou, Elias, 2009. "What drives international financial flows? Politics, institutions and other determinants," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 269-281, March.
    7. Chor, Davin & Manova, Kalina, 2012. "Off the cliff and back? Credit conditions and international trade during the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 117-133.
    8. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    9. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2009. "Aid and Growth: Have We Come Full Circle?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2009-05, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2000. "Aid effectiveness disputed," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(3), pages 375-398, April.
    11. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    12. 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.
    13. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Indicators 2012," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6014.
    14. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    15. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    16. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2008. "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 643-665, November.
    17. Feeny, Simon & de Silva, Ashton, 2012. "Measuring absorptive capacity constraints to foreign aid," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 725-733.
    18. Baltagi, Badi H. & Demetriades, Panicos O. & Law, Siong Hook, 2009. "Financial development and openness: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 285-296, July.
    19. Robert C. Johnson, 2014. "Five Facts about Value-Added Exports and Implications for Macroeconomics and Trade Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 119-142, Spring.
    20. Arndt Channing & Jones Sam & Tarp Finn, 2010. "Aid, Growth, and Development: Have We Come Full Circle?," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 1-29, December.
    21. Sylviane GUILLAUMONT JEANNENEY & Patrick GUILLAUMONT, 2006. "Big Push versus Absorptive Capacity: How to Reconcile the Two Approaches," Working Papers 200614, CERDI.
    22. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2011. "Aid Effectiveness: Opening the Black Box," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-044, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    23. Boone, Peter, 1996. "Politics and the effectiveness of foreign aid," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 289-329, February.
    24. Collier, Paul & Dollar, David, 2002. "Aid allocation and poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1475-1500, September.
    25. Laurent Wagner, 2014. "Identifying thresholds in aid effectiveness," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(3), pages 619-638, August.
    26. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    27. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    28. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    29. Levine, Ross, 2005. "Finance and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 865-934, Elsevier.
    30. Acemoglu, Daron & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1997. "Was Prometheus Unbound by Chance? Risk, Diversification, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(4), pages 709-751, August.
    31. Simon Feeny & Mark McGillivray, 2011. "Scaling‐up Foreign Aid: Will the ‘Big Push’ Work?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 54-73, January.
    32. Michael A. Clemens & Steven Radelet & Rikhil R. Bhavnani & Samuel Bazzi, 2012. "Counting Chickens when they Hatch: Timing and the Effects of Aid on Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(561), pages 590-617, June.
    33. Asiedu, Elizabeth & Lien, Donald, 2011. "Democracy, foreign direct investment and natural resources," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 99-111, May.
    34. Rioja, Felix & Valev, Neven, 2004. "Does one size fit all?: a reexamination of the finance and growth relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 429-447, August.
    35. 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.
    36. Orazio P. Attanasio & Lucio Picci & Antonello E. Scorcu, 2000. "Saving, Growth, and Investment: A Macroeconomic Analysis Using a Panel of Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 182-211, May.
    37. repec:zbw:bofitp:2011_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. 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.
    39. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    40. Simon Feeny & Mark McGillivray, 2010. "Aid and Growth in Small Island Developing States," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(5), pages 897-917.
    41. Arndt Channing & Jones Sam & Tarp Finn, 2010. "Aid, Growth, and Development: Have We Come Full Circle?," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 1-29, December.
    42. 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.
    43. World Bank, 2013. "World Development Indicators 2013," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13191.
    44. Beck , Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Financial institutions and markets across countries and over time - data and analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4943, The World Bank.
    45. Schweinberger, Albert G. & Lahiri, Sajal, 2006. "On the provision of official and private foreign aid," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 179-197, June.
    46. Stern, Nicholas H., 1974. "Professor Bauer on development : A review article," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 191-211, December.
    47. Channing Arndt & Sam Jones & Finn Tarp, 2011. "Aid Effectiveness: Opening the Black Box," WIDER Working Paper Series 044, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Efobi, Uchenna & Asongu, Simplice, 2015. "How Terrorism Explains Capital Flight from Africa," MPRA Paper 68662, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Simplice A. Asongu & Joseph Nnanna & Rexon T. Nting, 2022. "A bad turn deserves another: linkages between terrorism, capital flight and industrialisation," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(10), pages 760-772, July.
    3. Efobi, Uchenna & Nnadi, Matthias, 2015. "Foreign Aid, IFRS Adoption and Foreign Direct Investment," EconStor Preprints 114568, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Efobi, Uchenna & Asongu, Simplice, 2016. "Terrorism and capital flight from Africa," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 81-94.
    5. Muhammad Athar Nadeem & Zhiying Liu & Haji Suleman Ali & Amna Younis & Muhammad Bilal & Yi Xu, 2020. "Innovation and Sustainable Development: Does Aid and Political Instability Impede Innovation?," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.
    6. Uchenna R. Efobi & Matthias Nnadi, 2015. "How Does Foreign Aid Affect the Relationship between IFRS Adoption and Foreign Direct Investment?," Research Africa Network Working Papers 15/014, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    7. Huanhuan Zheng & Chen Li, 2022. "Can money buy friendship?—Evidence from the US and China’s competition for influence through foreign aid," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(10), pages 3224-3245, October.
    8. Lisa Chauvet & Marin Ferry, 2023. "L’efficacité de l’aide : quelles évolutions de la littérature depuis deux décennies ? WP329," Working Papers hal-04141543, HAL.
    9. Gaibulloev, Khusrav & Younas, Javed, 2018. "Untying the motives of giving grants vs. loans," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Riegler Robert & Lis Piotr & Hisarciklilar Mehtap, 2017. "Buying Friends? The Importance of Economic Flows in Assembling the Iraq War Coalition," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 23(4), pages 1-6, December.
    11. Sini, Snow & Abdul-Rahim, A.S. & Chin, Lee & Said, Rusmawati & Sulaiman, Chindo, 2022. "Natural resources’ impact on capital flow and conflict relationship in Africa: A novel insight from GMM and quantile regression," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

    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. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sajal Lahiri & Javed Younas, 2013. "Financing growth: foreign aid vs. foreign loans," Working Papers 2013-031, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    2. 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).
    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. Maruta, Admasu Asfaw, 2019. "Can aid for financial sector buy financial development?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Harb, Nermeen & Hall, Stephen G., 2019. "Does foreign aid play a role in the maintenance of economic growth? A non-linear analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 192-204.
    6. 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.
    7. Chauvet, Lisa & Ehrhart, Hélène, 2018. "Aid and growth: evidence from firm-level data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 461-477.
    8. Kamguia, Brice & Tadadjeu, Sosson & Miamo, Clovis & Njangang, Henri, 2022. "Does foreign aid impede economic complexity in developing countries?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 71-88.
    9. Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, 2012. "How Aid Supply Responds to Economic Crises: A Panel VAR Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-025, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Admasu Asfaw Maruta & Rajabrata Banerjee, 2021. "Does energy aid improve energy efficiency in developing countries?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 355-388, July.
    11. 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).
    12. Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna, 2012. "How Aid Supply Responds to Economic Crises: A Panel VAR Approach," WIDER Working Paper Series 025, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ismahene Yahyaoui & Najeh Bouchoucha, 2020. "Foreign Aid-Growth Nexus in Africa: Do Institutions Matter?," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(4), pages 1663-1689, December.
    15. Maruta, Admasu Asfaw & Banerjee, Rajabrata & Cavoli, Tony, 2020. "Foreign aid, institutional quality and economic growth: Evidence from the developing world," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 444-463.
    16. 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.
    17. Patrick Guillaumont & Laurent Wagner, 2014. "Aid Effectiveness for Poverty Reduction: Lessons from Cross‑country Analyses, with a Special Focus on Vulnerable Countries," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 22(HS01), pages 217-261.
    18. Sebastian Galiani & Stephen Knack & Lixin Colin Xu & Ben Zou, 2017. "The effect of aid on growth: evidence from a Quasi-experiment," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-33, March.
    19. Minoiu, Camelia & Reddy, Sanjay G., 2010. "Development aid and economic growth: A positive long-run relation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 27-39, February.
    20. Martin Ravallion, 2014. "On the Role of Aid in The Great Escape," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 967-984, December.
    21. Strand, Jon, 2009. ""Revenue management"effects related to financial flows generated by climate policy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5053, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign aid; Offshore bank loans; Interaction between aid and loans; Economic growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

    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:eee:jimfin:v:56:y:2015:i:c:p:75-96. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    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.