IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10969.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wedded to Prosperity? Informal Influence and Regional Favoritism

Author

Listed:
  • Pietro Bomprezzi
  • Axel Dreher
  • Andreas Fuchs
  • Teresa Hailer
  • Andreas Kammerlander
  • Lennart Kaplan
  • Silvia Marchesi
  • Tania Masi
  • Charlotte Robert
  • Kerstin Unfried

Abstract

This paper explores the informal influence of political leaders' spouses on the subnational allocation and effectiveness of development aid. We investigate whether regions containing the birthplaces of political leaders' spouses receive significantly more aid during their partners' tenure and whether this aid is less effective compared to other times. To examine these patterns, we construct two new global datasets: one tracking the personal characteristics of political leaders and their spouses, and another geocoding aid projects, including new data on aid from the United States and 18 European donors. Our analysis of the 1990-2020 period reveals that regions with the birthplaces of political leaders' spouses receive significantly more aid from Western bilateral donors, while political favoritism through Chinese aid shifts from the birth regions of spouses to those of the leaders themselves. We find that aid to the birth regions of spouses increases particularly before elections and is less effective there compared to aid given to the same regions at other times.

Suggested Citation

  • Pietro Bomprezzi & Axel Dreher & Andreas Fuchs & Teresa Hailer & Andreas Kammerlander & Lennart Kaplan & Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi & Charlotte Robert & Kerstin Unfried, 2024. "Wedded to Prosperity? Informal Influence and Regional Favoritism," CESifo Working Paper Series 10969, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10969
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10969.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blair, Robert A. & Marty, Robert & Roessler, Philip, 2022. "Foreign Aid and Soft Power: Great Power Competition in Africa in the Early Twenty-first Century," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(3), pages 1355-1376, July.
    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. Becker, Malte & Krüger, Finja & Heidland, Tobias, 2024. "What Drives Attitudes toward Immigrants in Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence from Uganda and Senegal," IZA Discussion Papers 16734, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Dreher, Axel & Lang, Valentin & Reinsberg, Bernhard, 2024. "Aid effectiveness and donor motives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    favoritism; informal influence; birth regions; development finance; foreign aid; official development assistance; political connections; geoeconomics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • P33 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - International Trade, Finance, Investment, Relations, and Aid
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10969. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.