IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecosys/v40y2016i2p260-272.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding the link between aid and corruption: A causality analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Menard, Audrey-Rose
  • Weill, Laurent

Abstract

This paper addresses the direction of the causal link between aid and corruption. We perform Granger causality tests in a dynamic GMM panel framework to evaluate the sign and direction of causality between aid and corruption on a dataset of 71 developing countries over the period 1996–2009. We find no significant causal relation between aid and corruption running in either direction. Our results are robust to various controls.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:40:y:2016:i:2:p:260-272
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2016.01.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939362516300139
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecosys.2016.01.001?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. Enrico Spolaore & Alberto Alesina & Romain Wacziarg, 2000. "Economic Integration and Political Disintegration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1276-1296, December.
    2. David de la Croix & Clara Delavallade, 2014. "Why corrupt governments may receive more foreign aid," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 51-66, January.
    3. Nicholas CHARRON, 2011. "Exploring The Impact Of Foreign Aid On Corruption: Has The “Anti‐Corruption Movement” Been Effective?," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 49(1), pages 66-88, March.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Dollar, David, 2000. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 33-63, March.
    5. Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Thiele, Rainer, 2011. "Are ‘New’ Donors Different? Comparing the Allocation of Bilateral Aid Between nonDAC and DAC Donor Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1950-1968.
    6. 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.
    7. Stephen Knack, 2001. "Aid Dependence and the Quality of Governance: Cross-Country Empirical Tests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(2), pages 310-329, October.
    8. Tavares, Jose, 2003. "Does foreign aid corrupt?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 99-106, April.
    9. Svensson, Jakob, 2000. "Foreign aid and rent-seeking," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 437-461, August.
    10. Simplice A Asongu, 2012. "On the effect of foreign aid on corruption," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(3), pages 2174-2180.
    11. Dumitrescu, Elena-Ivona & Hurlin, Christophe, 2012. "Testing for Granger non-causality in heterogeneous panels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1450-1460.
    12. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross‐Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
    13. Simplice A Asongu & Jellal Mohamed, 2013. "On the channels of foreign aid to corruption," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 2191-2201.
    14. Thierry Kangoye, 2013. "Does aid unpredictability weaken governance? Evidence from developing countries," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 51(2), pages 121-144, June.
    15. Richard Blundell & Stephen Bond, 2000. "GMM Estimation with persistent panel data: an application to production functions," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 321-340.
    16. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    17. Jean‐Claude Berthélemy, 2006. "Bilateral Donors’ Interest vs. Recipients’ Development Motives in Aid Allocation: Do All Donors Behave the Same?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 179-194, May.
    18. 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.
    19. Judith Giles, 1994. "Another look at the evidence on foreign aid led economic growth," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(11), pages 194-199.
    20. 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.
    21. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Ola Olsson, 0. "Windfall Gains, Political Economy and Economic Development," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 17(suppl_1), pages -109.
    22. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    23. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1995. "Institutions and Economic Performance: Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Indicators," MPRA Paper 23118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    24. Dunning, Thad, 2004. "Conditioning the Effects of Aid: Cold War Politics, Donor Credibility, and Democracy in Africa," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 409-423, April.
    25. Billor, Nedret & Hadi, Ali S. & Velleman, Paul F., 2000. "BACON: blocked adaptive computationally efficient outlier nominators," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 279-298, September.
    26. 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.
    27. Brautigam, Deborah A & Knack, Stephen, 2004. "Foreign Aid, Institutions, and Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 255-285, January.
    28. Thierry Kangoye, 2013. "Does aid unpredictability weaken governance? Evidence from developing countries," Post-Print halshs-00843756, HAL.
    29. Raghuram Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2007. "Does Aid Affect Governance?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 322-327, May.
    30. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    31. Thierry Kangoye, 2013. "Does aid unpredictability weaken governance? Evidence from developing countries," Post-Print halshs-00843755, HAL.
    32. repec:agd:wpaper:13/21 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Büthe, Tim & Major, Solomon & Souza, André de Mello e, 2012. "The Politics of Private Foreign Aid: Humanitarian Principles, Economic Development Objectives, and Organizational Interests in NGO Private Aid Allocation," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 571-607, October.
    34. Berthelemy, Jean-Claude & Tichit, Ariane, 2004. "Bilateral donors' aid allocation decisions--a three-dimensional panel analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 253-274.
    35. Easterly, William & Williamson, Claudia R., 2011. "Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst of Aid Agency Practices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1930-1949.
    36. Samuel Bazzi & Michael A. Clemens, 2013. "Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 152-186, April.
    37. Van Rijckeghem, Caroline & Weder, Beatrice, 2001. "Bureaucratic corruption and the rate of temptation: do wages in the civil service affect corruption, and by how much?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 307-331, August.
    38. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    39. Trumbull, William N & Wall, Howard J, 1994. "Estimating Aid-Allocation Criteria with Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(425), pages 876-882, July.
    40. David Roodman, 2008. "Through the Looking-Glass, and What OLS Found There: On Growth, Foreign Aid, and Reverse Causality," Working Papers 137, Center for Global Development.
    41. Bowles, Paul, 1987. "Foreign aid and domestic savings in less developed countries: Some tests for causality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 789-796, June.
    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. Lavinia DudaÈ™ & Lavinia MihiÈ›, 2019. "What Shapes Elections and Corruption in Emerging and Developing Countries ?," Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, Ovidius University of Constantza, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 0(1), pages 195-201, August.
    2. Rezwanul Hasan Rana & Khorshed Alam & Jeff Gow, 2020. "Health expenditure and gross domestic product: causality analysis by income level," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 55-77, March.
    3. Dokas, Ioannis & Panagiotidis, Minas & Papadamou, Stephanos & Spyromitros, Eleftherios, 2023. "Does innovation affect the impact of corruption on economic growth? International evidence," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1030-1054.
    4. Ertan Tosun & Dervis Kirikkaleli & Okan Veli Safakli, 2020. "An Isolated Island Economy Analysis on the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid: TRNC," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    5. Dijkstra, Geske, 2018. "Aid and good governance: Examining aggregate unintended effects of aid," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 225-232.

    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. Askarov, Zohid & Doucouliagos, Hristos, 2015. "Aid and institutions in transition economies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 55-70.
    2. Zohid Askarov & Hristos Doucouliagos, 2013. "Does aid improve democracy and governance? A meta-regression analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 601-628, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Audrey Rose Menard, 2014. "Do natural resources condition the aid-governance relationship? Evidence from Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 1317-1326.
    5. Asongu, Simplice A & Jellal, Mohamed, 2014. "International aid, corruption and fiscal policy behavior," MPRA Paper 58750, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. repec:elg:eechap:15325_15 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Simplice A. Asongu & Mohamed Jellal, 2014. "Foreign aid, investment and fiscal policy behavior: theory and empirical evidence," Research Africa Network Working Papers 14/030, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    8. Jones, Sam & Tarp, Finn, 2016. "Does foreign aid harm political institutions?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 266-281.
    9. Asongu , Simplice A., 2015. "On the dynamic effects of foreign aid on corruption," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 4(1), pages 5-10.
    10. Jones, Sam & Tarp, Finn, 2016. "Does foreign aid harm political institutions?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 266-281.
    11. Hagen, Rune Jansen, 2014. "Rents and the Political Economy of Development Aid," Working Papers in Economics 07/14, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    12. Dzhumashev, Ratbek & Hailemariam, Abebe, 2021. "Foreign aid and the quality of economic institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    13. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2016. "Foreign aid and governance in Africa," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 69-88, January.
    14. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2018. "Chinese aid and local corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 146-159.
    15. Simplice Anutechia Asongu, 2014. "The Evolving Debate on the Effect of Foreign Aid on Corruption and Institutions in Africa," AAYE Policy Research Working Paper Series 14_021, Association of African Young Economists, revised Nov 2014.
    16. Simplice A. Asongu, Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2021. "Taxation, foreign aid and political governance in Africa," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 18(2), pages 217-249, December.
    17. Roland Hodler & David S. Knight, 2012. "Ethnic Fractionalisation and Aid Effectiveness," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(1), pages 65-93, January.
    18. Nagae, Akira & Katayama, Hajime & Takase, Koichi, 2022. "Donor aid allocation and accounting standards of recipients," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    19. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack, 2018. "World Bank Policy Lending and the Quality of Public-Sector Governance," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 29-54.
    20. Simplice Asongu, 2015. "On Taxation, Political Accountability and Foreign Aid: Empirics to a Celebrated Literature," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(2), pages 180-198, June.
    21. Asongu, Simplice & Jellal, Mohamed, 2014. "International aid corruption and fiscal behavior policy," MPRA Paper 57192, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aid; Corruption; Granger causality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    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:ecosys:v:40:y:2016:i:2:p:260-272. 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: https://edirc.repec.org/data/osteide.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.