Equal opportunity and poverty reduction: how should aid be allocated?

This paper analyzes a model of aid allocation equalizing the opportunity between recipient countries to reach a common poverty reduction goal. We propose a fair and efficient aid allocation based on a multicriteria principle. The model considers structural handicaps in recipient countries in terms of lack of human capital and economic vulnerability, their initial poverty, and the natural gap between the growth rate required to reach a development goal and the observed one. We show that our proposed aid allocation favors poor and vulnerable countries with our multicriteria principle. It substantially differs from the observed allocation. Analyses also shed light on the impact of the donors' aversion to the low natural growth gap in recipient countries on the optimal aid allocation and the marginal efficiency of aid.