IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v90y2020icp322-330.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Chinese aid win the hearts and minds of Africa’s local population?

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Zhicheng Phil
  • Zhang, Yu

Abstract

The vast increase in China’s aid projects has raised mounting concerns about the effectiveness of Chinese aid. To assess Chinese development assistance in Africa from the perspective of local residents’ attitude toward Chinese projects, we geographically match Chinese aid projects in Africa from 2000 to 2012 to the respondents of the Afrobarometer survey. By comparing the attitudes toward China reported by individuals who live close to ongoing Chinese projects at the time of the interview to those of individuals who live near sites where Chinese projects will be implemented in the future, this study establishes that the presence of Chinese projects induces a positive view of Chinese aid within the local population. Our mechanism analysis shows that people from all statuses can benefit from economic infrastructure projects, while the advantaged tend to have a better view of Chinese aid. In contrast, social infrastructure aid inspires a more positive view among disadvantaged people. We thus demonstrate that aid can have a differential impact on local attitudes, depending on aid types and statuses of recipients.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Zhicheng Phil & Zhang, Yu, 2020. "Can Chinese aid win the hearts and minds of Africa’s local population?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 322-330.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:90:y:2020:i:c:p:322-330
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2019.12.017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999319310727
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2019.12.017?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zak, Paul J & Knack, Stephen, 2001. "Trust and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 295-321, April.
    2. Carl Henrik Knutsen & Andreas Kotsadam & Eivind Hammersmark Olsen & Tore Wig, 2017. "Mining and Local Corruption in Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(2), pages 320-334, April.
    3. Axel Dreher & Andreas Fuchs, 2015. "Rogue aid? An empirical analysis of China's aid allocation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(3), pages 988-1023, August.
    4. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    5. Eli Berman & Jacob N. Shapiro & Joseph H. Felter, 2011. "Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 766-819.
    6. Michael A. Clemens & Steven Radelet & Rikhil R. Bhavnani & Samuel Bazzi, 2012. "Counting Chickens when they Hatch: Timing and the Effects of Aid on Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(561), pages 590-617, June.
    7. Qayyum, Unbreen & Din, Musleh-ud & Haider, Adnan, 2014. "Foreign aid, external debt and governance," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 41-52.
    8. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    9. Alberto Alesina & Beatrice Weder, 2002. "Do Corrupt Governments Receive Less Foreign Aid?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1126-1137, September.
    10. Tavares, Jose, 2003. "Does foreign aid corrupt?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 99-106, April.
    11. 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.
    12. Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "Foreign aid and rent-seeking," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 437-461, August.
    13. Chauvet, Lisa & Ehrhart, Hélène, 2018. "Aid and growth: evidence from firm-level data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 461-477.
    14. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2018. "Chinese aid and local corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 146-159.
    15. Minasyan, Anna, 2016. "Your development or mine? Effects of donor–recipient cultural differences on the aid-growth nexus," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 309-325.
    16. Martorano, Bruno & Metzger, Laura & Sanfilippo, Marco, 2020. "Chinese development assistance and household welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    17. Nancy Qian, 2015. "Making Progress on Foreign Aid," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 277-308, August.
    18. Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2012. "The effect of foreign aid on corruption: A quantile regression approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 240-243.
    19. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    20. 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.
    21. Mishra, Prachi & Newhouse, David, 2009. "Does health aid matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 855-872, July.
    22. William Easterly, 2009. "Can the West Save Africa?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 373-447, June.
    23. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2008. "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 643-665, November.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Brueckner, Lutz, 2018. "The Effects of Trade, Aid, and Investment on China's Image in Developing Countries," Working Papers 0646, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    26. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    27. Kersting, Erasmus & Kilby, Christopher, 2014. "Aid and democracy redux," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 125-143.
    28. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2019. "African leaders and the geography of China's foreign assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 44-71.
    29. Jonathan Temple & Paul A. Johnson, 1998. "Social Capability and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 965-990.
    30. Edwin Muchapondwa & Daniel Nielson & Bradley Parks & Austin M. Strange & Michael J. Tierney, 2016. "‘Ground-Truthing’ Chinese Development Finance in Africa: Field Evidence from South Africa and Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(6), pages 780-796, June.
    31. Minasyan, Anna & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Richert, Katharina, 2017. "Does Aid Effectiveness Depend on the Quality of Donors?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 16-30.
    32. Afridi, Muhammad Asim & Ventelou, Bruno, 2013. "Impact of health aid in developing countries: The public vs. the private channels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 759-765.
    33. Edward Miguel & Michael Kremer, 2004. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 159-217, January.
    34. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das, 2017. "In Aid We Trust: Hearts and Minds and the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 371-386, July.
    35. Kathavate, Jay & Mallik, Girijasankar, 2012. "The impact of the Interaction between institutional quality and aid volatility on growth: theory and evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 716-724.
    36. 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.
    37. Collier, Paul & Dollar, David, 2002. "Aid allocation and poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1475-1500, September.
    38. Samuel Brazys & Johan A. Elkink & Gina Kelly, 2017. "Bad neighbors? How co-located Chinese and World Bank development projects impact local corruption in Tanzania," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 227-253, June.
    39. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    40. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    41. Joseph Onjala, 2018. "China's development loans and the threat of debt crisis in Kenya," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S2), pages 710-728, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    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. Bai, Yu & Li, Yanjun & Wang, Yunuo, 2022. "Chinese aid and local political attitudes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Becker, Malte & Krüger, Finja & Heidland, Tobias, 2022. "Country, culture or competition: What drives attitudes towards immigrants in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Kiel Working Papers 2224, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    4. McCauley, John F. & Pearson, Margaret M. & Wang, Xiaonan, 2022. "Does Chinese FDI in Africa inspire support for a china model of development?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    5. Philip Akrofi Atitianti, 2023. "The impact of Chinese aid on political trust," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(2), pages 233-259, March.
    6. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Li, Xiao & Zhuang, Yuhang & Li, Ningning, 2022. "World Bank aid and local multidimensional poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Michael Appiah‐Kubi & Jeneshia Jarrett, 2023. "Chinese aid and crime: Evidence from Africa," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 1619-1647, October.
    8. Lisa Chauvet & Marin Ferry, 2023. "L’efficacité de l’aide : quelles évolutions de la littérature depuis deux décennies ? WP329," Working Papers hal-04141543, HAL.
    9. Wellner, Lukas & Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Parks, Bradley & Strange, Austin M., 2022. "Can aid buy foreign public support? Evidence from Chinese development finance," Kiel Working Papers 2214, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Brückner, Lutz, 2021. "The effects of trade, aid, and investment on China's image in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 483-498.
    11. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Zhuang, Yuhang & Ding, Yibing & Liu, Ziwei, 2023. "Infrastructure and poverty reduction: Assessing the dynamic impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    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. Mandon, Pierre & Woldemichael, Martha Tesfaye, 2023. "Has Chinese aid benefited recipient countries? Evidence from a meta-regression analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    3. Maruta, Admasu Asfaw & Banerjee, Rajabrata & Cavoli, Tony, 2020. "Foreign aid, institutional quality and economic growth: Evidence from the developing world," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 444-463.
    4. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2018. "Chinese aid and local corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 146-159.
    5. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    6. Marson, Marta & Savin, Ivan, 2022. "Complementary or adverse? Comparing development results of official funding from China and traditional donors in Africa," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 189-206.
    7. Ann-Sofie Isaksson & Dick Durevall, 2023. "Aid and institutions: Local effects of World Bank aid on perceived institutional quality in Africa," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 523-551, July.
    8. William Easterly, 2009. "Can the West Save Africa?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 373-447, June.
    9. Dzhumashev, Ratbek & Hailemariam, Abebe, 2021. "Foreign aid and the quality of economic institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Tierney, Michael J. & Nielson, Daniel L. & Hawkins, Darren G. & Roberts, J. Timmons & Findley, Michael G. & Powers, Ryan M. & Parks, Bradley & Wilson, Sven E. & Hicks, Robert L., 2011. "More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1891-1906.
    11. Askarov, Zohid & Doucouliagos, Hristos, 2015. "Development Aid and Growth in Transition Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 383-399.
    12. 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.
    13. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Zhuang, Yuhang & Ding, Yibing & Liu, Ziwei, 2023. "Infrastructure and poverty reduction: Assessing the dynamic impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007. "Institutions, Trade, and Social Cohesion in Fragile States," ICER Working Papers 24-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    15. Harb, Nermeen & Hall, Stephen G., 2019. "Does foreign aid play a role in the maintenance of economic growth? A non-linear analysis," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 192-204.
    16. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2021. "Is Favoritism a Threat to Chinese Aid Effectiveness? A Subnational Analysis of Chinese Development Projects," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    17. Elena Groß & Felicitas Nowak‐Lehmann Danzinger, 2022. "What effect does development aid have on productivity in recipient countries?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 1438-1465, August.
    18. Keith Blackburn & Gonzalo F. Forgues-Puccio, 2011. "Foreign aid - a fillip for development or a fuel for corruption?," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 158, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    19. Breitwieser, Anja & Wick, Katharina, 2016. "What We Miss By Missing Data: Aid Effectiveness Revisited," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 554-571.
    20. Menard, Audrey-Rose & Weill, Laurent, 2016. "Understanding the link between aid and corruption: A causality analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 260-272.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Chinese aid; Africa; Aid effectiveness; Economic infrastructure; Social infrastructure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

    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:ecmode:v:90:y:2020:i:c:p:322-330. 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/inca/30411 .

    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.