IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v56y2014icp172-199.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Determinants of Donor Generosity: A Survey of the Aid Budget Literature

Author

Listed:
  • Fuchs, Andreas
  • Dreher, Axel
  • Nunnenkamp, Peter

Abstract

This article provides a survey of the aid budget literature and examines the determinants of the development aid efforts of 22 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members over the 1976–2011 period. In fixed effects regressions, we identify aid inertia, per-capita GDP, the creation of an independent aid agency, colonial history, Russian military capacity, peer effects, terror incidents, aid to CEEC/NIS countries, and imports from developing countries as determinants of the Official Development Assistance (ODA)-to-GNI ratio. Excluding donor fixed effects, several variables, including colonial history and the aid agency dummy, are no longer significant; the impact of per-capita GDP gets weaker, while donors’ budget deficits decrease aid effort.

Suggested Citation

  • Fuchs, Andreas & Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2014. "Determinants of Donor Generosity: A Survey of the Aid Budget Literature," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 172-199.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:56:y:2014:i:c:p:172-199
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.09.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1300212X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.09.004?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    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. Klasen, Stephan & Davies, Ronald B., 2011. "Of Donor Coordination, Free-Riding, Darlings, and Orphans: The dependence of bilateral aid commitments on other bilateral giving," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 47, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Fleck, Robert K. & Kilby, Christopher, 2010. "Changing aid regimes? U.S. foreign aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 185-197, March.
    5. Axel Dreher & Andreas Fuchs, 2011. "Does terror increase aid?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 337-363, December.
    6. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    7. Hristos Doucouliagos & Martin Paldam, 2009. "The Aid Effectiveness Literature: The Sad Results Of 40 Years Of Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 433-461, July.
    8. Simone Bertoli & Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Francesco Manaresi, 2007. "Aid performance and its determinants. A comparison of Italy with the OECD norm," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 60(242), pages 271-321.
    9. David Roodman, 2004. "An Index of Donor Performance," Working Papers 42, Center for Global Development.
    10. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    11. Lise Togeby, 1994. "The Gender Gap in Foreign Policy Attitudes," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 31(4), pages 375-392, November.
    12. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Indicators 2012," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6014.
    13. Gorm Rye Olsen, 1998. "The aid policy process of a 'humane internationalist': the Danish example," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(5), pages 607-619.
    14. Anne Boschini & Anders Olofsgård, 2007. "Foreign aid: An instrument for fighting communism?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(4), pages 622-648.
    15. Ronald B. Davies & Stephan Klasen, 2013. "Of Donor Coordination, Free-Riding, Darlings, and Orphans: The Dependence of Bilateral Aid on Other Bilateral Giving," CESifo Working Paper Series 4177, CESifo.
    16. Fuchs, Andreas & Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2014. "Determinants of Donor Generosity: A Survey of the Aid Budget Literature," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 172-199.
    17. Selaya, Pablo & Sunesen, Eva Rytter, 2012. "Does Foreign Aid Increase Foreign Direct Investment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2155-2176.
    18. William Easterly & Tobias Pfutze, 2008. "Where Does the Money Go? Best and Worst Practices in Foreign Aid," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 29-52, Spring.
    19. Ale Bulir & A. Javier Hamann, 2003. "Aid Volatility: An Empirical Assessment," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(1), pages 1-4.
    20. Round, Jeffery I. & Odedokun, Matthew, 2004. "Aid effort and its determinants," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 293-309.
    21. Thérien, Jean-Philippe & Noël, Alain, 2000. "Political Parties and Foreign Aid," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 151-162, March.
    22. Easterly, William & Williamson, Claudia R., 2011. "Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst of Aid Agency Practices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1930-1949.
    23. Faini, Riccardo, 2006. "Foreign Aid and Fiscal Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 5721, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    24. Brech, Viktor & Potrafke, Niklas, 2014. "Donor ideology and types of foreign aid," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 61-75.
    25. Martin Gassebner & Michael Lamla & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2006. "Economic, Demographic and Political Determinants of Pollution Reassessed: A Sensitivity Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 1699, CESifo.
    26. Beenstock, Michael, 1980. "Political econometry of official development assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 137-144, February.
    27. Knack, Stephen & Rogers, F. Halsey & Eubank, Nicholas, 2011. "Aid Quality and Donor Rankings," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1907-1917.
    28. repec:bla:kyklos:v:54:y:2001:i:1:p:89-113 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    30. Ilyana Kuziemko & Eric Werker, 2006. "How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 905-930, October.
    31. Mr. Fabian Valencia & Mr. Luc Laeven, 2012. "Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update," IMF Working Papers 2012/163, International Monetary Fund.
    32. Niklas Potrafke, 2011. "Does government ideology influence budget composition? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 101-134, June.
    33. Jeffery I. Round & Matthew Odedokun, 2003. "Aid Effort and its Determinants," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-03, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    34. Bruno, Giovanni S.F., 2005. "Approximating the bias of the LSDV estimator for dynamic unbalanced panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 361-366, June.
    35. Leamer, Edward E, 1983. "Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-43, March.
    36. Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 1997. "I Just Ran Four Million Regressions," NBER Working Papers 6252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Frederick Solt, 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database," LIS Working papers 496, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    38. Schneider, Friedrich & Frey, Bruno S., 1985. "Economic and political determinants of foreign direct investment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 161-175, February.
    39. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    40. Emmanuel Frot & Javier Santiso, 2011. "Herding in Aid Allocation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 54-74, February.
    41. Noël, Alain & Thérien, Jean-Philippe, 1995. "From domestic to international justice: the welfare state and foreign aid," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 523-553, July.
    42. Keefer, Philip & Stasavage, David, 2003. "The Limits of Delegation: Veto Players, Central Bank Independence, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 407-423, August.
    43. Büthe, Tim & Major, Solomon & Souza, André de Mello e, 2012. "The Politics of Private Foreign Aid: Humanitarian Principles, Economic Development Objectives, and Organizational Interests in NGO Private Aid Allocation," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 571-607, October.
    44. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    45. Calì, Massimiliano & te Velde, Dirk Willem, 2011. "Does Aid for Trade Really Improve Trade Performance?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 725-740, May.
    46. Tingley, Dustin, 2010. "Donors and domestic politics: Political influences on foreign aid effort," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 40-49, February.
    47. Erik Lundsgaarde & Christian Breunig & Aseem Prakash, 2007. "Trade versus aid: donor generosity in an era of globalization," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 40(2), pages 157-179, June.
    48. Frederick Solt, 2009. "Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(2), pages 231-242, June.
    49. Mosley, Paul, 1985. "The Political Economy of Foreign Aid: A Model of the Market for a Public Good," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(2), pages 373-393, January.
    50. Avik Chakrabarti, 2001. "The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investments: Sensitivity Analyses of Cross‐Country Regressions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 89-114, February.
    51. 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.
    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. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2018. "Development Minister Characteristics and Aid Giving," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53, pages 186-204.
    2. Fuchs, Andreas & Richert, Katharina, 2015. "Do Development Minister Characteristics Affect Aid Giving?," Working Papers 0604, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    3. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2017. "Structural economic vulnerability, openness and bilateral development aid flows," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 77-95.
    4. Sena Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "De Facto Fiscal Space in Donor-countries and Their Aid Supply: To What Extent is Trade-related Aid Supply Affected?," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, June.
    5. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2018. "Donors’ Trade and Their Supply of Development Aid Related to the Trade Sector: Does Donors’ Output Gap Matter?," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(01n02), pages 1-30, February.
    6. Sena Kimm GNANGNON, 2013. "How do OECD donor countries distribute foreign aid among developing countries during their fiscal episodes?," Working Papers 201301, CERDI.
    7. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2013. "How do OECD donor countries distribute foreign aid among developing countries during their fiscal episodes?," Working Papers halshs-00786009, HAL.
    8. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2013. "How do OECD donor countries distribute foreign aid among developing countries during their fiscal episodes?," CERDI Working papers halshs-00786009, HAL.
    9. Brech, Viktor & Potrafke, Niklas, 2014. "Donor ideology and types of foreign aid," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 61-75.
    10. Jean-Louis Combes & Rasmané Ouedraogo, 2014. "Does Pro-cyclical Aid Lead to Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? An Empirical Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa," CERDI Working papers halshs-01084600, HAL.
    11. Alessandro De Matteis, 2016. "Whose poverty really matters when deciding aid volumes?," International Journal of Public Policy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 12(1/2), pages 28-53.
    12. Bernhard REINSBERG, 2017. "The use of multi-bi aid by France in comparison with other donor countries," Working Paper 3c664604-b408-4a2c-bf46-5, Agence française de développement.
    13. Tobias Heinrich & Yoshiharu Kobayashi, 2022. "Evaluating explanations for poverty selectivity in foreign aid," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 30-47, February.
    14. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2011. "The consequences of Fiscal Episodes in OECD Countries for Aid Supply," Working Papers halshs-00613161, HAL.
    15. Fleck, Robert K. & Kilby, Christopher, 2010. "Changing aid regimes? U.S. foreign aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 185-197, March.
    16. Alessandro De Matteis, 2018. "Follow the leader! The peer effect in aid supply decisions," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(6), pages 631-648, October.
    17. Angelika J. Budjan & Andreas Fuchs, 2021. "Democracy and Aid Donorship," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 217-238, November.
    18. Sena Kimm GNANGNON, 2011. "The consequences of Fiscal Episodes in OECD Countries for Aid Supply," Working Papers 201122, CERDI.
    19. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2018. "Export Upgrading in Donor and Recipient Countries and Bilateral Development Aid Allocation," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 15(2), pages 249-276, December.
    20. Gnangnon, Sena Kimm, 2013. "The consequences of fiscal episodes in OECD DAC countries for aid supply," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 302-313.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    foreign aid; Official Development Assistance; aid budget; Extreme Bounds Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • H81 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods

    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:wdevel:v:56:y:2014:i:c:p:172-199. 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/worlddev .

    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.