IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/inafri/v16y2024i1p46-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign Aid, Political Power and FDI: Do Aid-dependent Institutions Facilitate Investment in Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Dongni Wang
  • Carmen Fillat-Castejón

Abstract

In this article, we examine the nexus between foreign development assistance and the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) through a de facto political power , as an aid-seeking and likely aid-dependent group. We apply structural equation modelling to investigate the direct and indirect effect of aid on FDI via economic institutions for a sample of 42 African countries from 2002 to 2016. Our results corroborate a direct positive effect of aid and institutions on FDI as a productive financial source. However, an aid-dependent de facto political power does not improve the economic institutions, and within a broad institutional context, it may even worsen them, evidencing the indirect effect of reducing a country’s attractiveness for FDI. This study offers robust evidence under different specifications and variables of institutions in addition to several controls for political and strategic interests and economic conditions. We ultimately develop a model explaining why aid barely makes any contribution to institutional reforms. In countries that are heavily dependent on aid, the beneficiary group is discouraged from improving institutional qualities as the source of benefits would be discontinued.

Suggested Citation

  • Dongni Wang & Carmen Fillat-Castejón, 2024. "Foreign Aid, Political Power and FDI: Do Aid-dependent Institutions Facilitate Investment in Africa?," Insight on Africa, , vol. 16(1), pages 46-72, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:inafri:v:16:y:2024:i:1:p:46-72
    DOI: 10.1177/09750878231209921
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09750878231209921
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09750878231209921?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jones, Sam & Tarp, Finn, 2016. "Does foreign aid harm political institutions?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 266-281.
    2. Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "When is foreign aid policy credible? Aid dependence and conditionality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 61-84, February.
    3. Kimura, Hidemi & Todo, Yasuyuki, 2010. "Is Foreign Aid a Vanguard of Foreign Direct Investment? A Gravity-Equation Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 482-497, April.
    4. Ryan H. Murphy, 2016. "A Comment on "Measuring Economic Freedom: A Comparison of Two Major Sources"," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 31(Fall 2016), pages 69-91.
    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. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2022. "Effect of the utilization of non-reciprocal trade preferences offered by the QUAD countries on beneficiary countries' economic complexity," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Slesman, Ly & Baharumshah, Ahmad Zubaidi & Azman-Saini, W.N.W., 2019. "Political institutions and finance-growth nexus in emerging markets and developing countries: A tale of one threshold," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 80-100.
    3. Lauren E. Lopez, 2015. "Corruption And International Aid Allocation: A Complex Dance," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 40(1), pages 35-61, March.
    4. Uchenna Efobi & Simplice Asongu & Ibukun Beecroft, 2018. "Aid, Terrorism, and Foreign Direct Investment: Empirical Insight Conditioned on Corruption Control," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 610-630, October.
    5. Stéphane Pallage & Michel A. Robe, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    6. Emmanuelle Auriol & Josepa Miquel-Florensa, 2019. "Taxing fragmented aid to improve aid efficiency," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 453-477, September.
    7. Gaoussou Diarra, 2011. "Aid unpredictability and absorptive capacity: analyzing disbursement delays in Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(1), pages 1004-1017.
    8. Kilby, Christopher, 2005. "World Bank lending and regulation," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 384-407, December.
    9. Maurice J.G. Bun & Martin A. Carree & Artūras Juodis, 2017. "On Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Dynamic Panel Data Models," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(4), pages 463-494, August.
    10. Rachel M. Gisselquist & Finn Tarp, 2019. "Aid Impact and Effectiveness: Introduction and Overview," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 1-4.
    11. Dašić Miloš, 2022. "Political Risk and Quality of Governance as Determinants of Foreign Direct Investments in the Transition Countries," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 60(3), pages 343-367, September.
    12. Paul Mosley, 2011. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Trust and conditionality; Or, can the World Bank ‘Leopard’ change its spots?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 483-483, September.
    13. Alok Kumar, 2017. "Foreign Aid, Incentives and Efficiency: Can Foreign Aid Lead to the Efficient Level of Investment?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 678-697, August.
    14. Carsten Hefeker, 2006. "Project Aid or Budget Aid? The Interests of Governments and Financial Institutions," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 241-252, May.
    15. Yu Ri Kim, 2019. "Does aid for trade diversify the export structure of recipient countries?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(9), pages 2684-2722, September.
    16. Donaubauer, Julian & Meyer, Birgit & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2016. "Aid, Infrastructure, and FDI: Assessing the Transmission Channel with a New Index of Infrastructure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 230-245.
    17. 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.
    18. Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Why conditional aid does not work and what can be done about it?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 381-402, April.
    19. Junyan Tian, 2023. "Does agricultural official development assistance facilitate foreign direct investment in agriculture: Evidence from 63 developing countries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 702-718, September.
    20. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack & Nadia Molenaers, 2013. "Political ideology, quality at entry and the success of economic reform programs," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 447-476, December.

    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:sae:inafri:v:16:y:2024:i:1:p:46-72. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.