Chinese aid and health at the country and local level

We investigate whether and to what extent Chinese development finance affects infant mortality, combining 92 demographic and health surveys (DHS) for a maximum of 53 countries and almost 55,000 sub-national locations over the 2002–2014 period. Our results show that Chinese aid decreases infant mortality at the country level. Relative to the country average, aid however increases infant mortality at sub-national scales. In several tests, we show that this stark contrast likely results from aid being fungible within recipient countries.