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Aid Effort and Its Determinants: A Comparison of the Italian Performance with other OECD Donors

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Abstract

this paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the determinants of aid effort by donor countries, a topic that has been rather under researched in the vast economic literature on development aid. We conduct an econometric analysis on panel data that refer to the 22 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee over the 1970 2004 period; the estimates are then used as a benchmark against which we assess to what extent the poor Italian aid performance can be traced back to its specific macroeconomic, structural and institutional characteristics. The analysis suggests that these factors – that are found to significantly influence aid effort – fall short of explaining the limited amount of fiscal resources that Italy devotes to international aid. Even when its specific characteristics are accounted for, Italy is found to be lagging behind the OECD norm, so that the analysis challenges the claims that the limited Italian aid effort is due to binding fiscal constraints.

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  • Simone Bertoli & Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Francesco Manaresi, 2008. "Aid Effort and Its Determinants: A Comparison of the Italian Performance with other OECD Donors," Working Papers - Economics wp2008_11.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    • Handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2008_11.rdf
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    foreign aid; fiscal expenditures; economic development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • H59 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Other
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

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