IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v392y2013i13p2893-2902.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional changes in the distribution of foreign aid: An entropy approach

Author

Listed:
  • Salois, Matthew J.

Abstract

Foreign aid contributes significantly to the income levels and economic viability of many developing countries. This paper investigates the dispersion in the distribution of foreign aid using the Theil entropy measure of inequality. Results show that the inequality (dispersion) of foreign aid has increased substantially in recent years. The increased inequality in the total distribution of aid has been due to both increases in the regional inequality of aid and increases in the average inequality of aid within each region. As a result, the distribution of aid is becoming less alike between regions and between countries within regions.

Suggested Citation

  • Salois, Matthew J., 2013. "Regional changes in the distribution of foreign aid: An entropy approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(13), pages 2893-2902.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:13:p:2893-2902
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.02.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437113001659
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2013.02.007?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. Stéphane Pallage & Michel A. Robe, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    2. Frank A. Cowell, 1980. "On the Structure of Additive Inequality Measures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(3), pages 521-531.
    3. Oecd, 2002. "Aid volume, channels and allocations for poverty reduction," OECD Journal on Development, OECD Publishing, vol. 3(3), pages 33-46.
    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. 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.
    6. François Bourguignon & Christian Morrisson, 2002. "Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820-1992," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 727-744, September.
    7. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    8. Clippe, Paulette & Ausloos, Marcel, 2012. "Benford’s law and Theil transform of financial data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(24), pages 6556-6567.
    9. Matthew Salois & Charles Moss & Kenneth Erickson, 2012. "Farm income, population and farmland prices: a relative information approach," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 39(2), pages 289-307, April.
    10. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    11. Rosenblatt, J. & Martinás, K., 2008. "Inequality indicators and distinguishability in economics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(8), pages 2047-2054.
    12. Theil, Henri, 1989. "The development of international inequality 1960-1985," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 145-155, September.
    13. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-920, July.
    14. McGillivray, Mark, 2004. "Descriptive and prescriptive analyses of aid allocation: Approaches, issues, and consequences," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 275-292.
    15. Howard White & Mark McGillivray, 1995. "How Well is Aid Allocated? Descriptive Measures of Aid Allocation: A Survey of Methodology and Results," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 26(1), pages 163-183, January.
    16. C. W. Granger & E. Maasoumi & J. Racine, 2004. "A Dependence Metric for Possibly Nonlinear Processes," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 649-669, September.
    17. Miśkiewicz, Janusz, 2010. "Entropy correlation distance method. The Euro introduction effect on the Consumer Price Index," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(8), pages 1677-1687.
    18. Collier, Paul & Dollar, David, 2002. "Aid allocation and poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1475-1500, September.
    19. 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.
    20. R. Robert Russell, 1985. "A Note on Decomposable Inequality Measures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(2), pages 347-352.
    21. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    22. Matthew J. Salois, 2012. "Biases in the distribution of bilateral aid: a regional decomposition analysis," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 203-206, February.
    23. Eliazar, Iddo I. & Sokolov, Igor M., 2012. "Measuring statistical evenness: A panoramic overview," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(4), pages 1323-1353.
    24. Mesghena Yasin, 2005. "Official Development Assistance and Foreign Direct Investment Flows to Sub‐Saharan Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 23-40.
    25. Jia Shao & Plamen Ch. Ivanov & Boris Podobnik & H. Eugene Stanley, 2007. "Quantitative relations between corruption and economic factors," Papers 0705.0161, arXiv.org.
    26. Miśkiewicz, Janusz & Ausloos, Marcel, 2010. "Has the world economy reached its globalization limit?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(4), pages 797-806.
    27. Dollar, David & Levin, Victoria, 2006. "The Increasing Selectivity of Foreign Aid, 1984-2003," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2034-2046, December.
    28. Boris Podobnik & Jia Shao & Djuro Njavro & Plamen Ivanov & H. Stanley, 2008. "Influence of corruption on economic growth rate and foreign investment," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 63(4), pages 547-550, June.
    29. 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.
    30. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Racine, Jeff, 2002. "Entropy and predictability of stock market returns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1-2), pages 291-312, March.
    31. Salois, Matthew & Moss, Charles, 2010. "An Information Approach to the Dynamics in Farm Income: Implications for Farmland Markets," MPRA Paper 26850, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    32. Azmat Gani, 2006. "Pacific island countries high per capita foreign aid requirement," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 285-292.
    33. Soofi, E. S. & Retzer, J. J., 2002. "Information indices: unification and applications," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 107(1-2), pages 17-40, March.
    34. White, Howard, 2004. "Trends in the volume and allocation of official flows from donor countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 233-244.
    35. 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.
    36. Pallage, Stephane & Robe, Michel A, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    37. Jia Shao & Plamen Ch. Ivanov & Boris Podobnik & H. Eugene Stanley, 2007. "Quantitative relations between corruption and economic factors," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 157-166, March.
    38. Theil, Henri & Theil, Henri, 1979. "World income inequality and its components," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 99-102.
    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. Dong Hee Suh, 2018. "An Entropy Approach to Regional Differences in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Ethanol Usage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, January.
    2. Xu, Hai-Yan & Kuo, Shyh-Hao & Li, Guoqi & Legara, Erika Fille T. & Zhao, Daxuan & Monterola, Christopher P., 2016. "Generalized Cross Entropy Method for estimating joint distribution from incomplete information," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 453(C), pages 162-172.
    3. Muhammad Hafeez & Chunhui Yuan & Issam Khelfaoui & Almalki Sultan Musaad O & Muhammad Waqas Akbar & Liu Jie, 2019. "Evaluating the Energy Consumption Inequalities in the One Belt and One Road Region: Implications for the Environment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-15, April.
    4. Behnam Ata & Parisa Pakrooh & Ayoub Barkat & Ramzi Benhizia & János Pénzes, 2022. "Inequalities in Regional Level Domestic CO 2 Emissions and Energy Use: A Case Study of Iran," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-26, May.
    5. Bianco, Vincenzo & Cascetta, Furio & Marino, Alfonso & Nardini, Sergio, 2019. "Understanding energy consumption and carbon emissions in Europe: A focus on inequality issues," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 120-130.

    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. 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.
    2. Stijn Claessens & Danny Cassimon, 2007. "Empirical evidence on the new international aid architecture," WEF Working Papers 0026, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London.
    3. Marchesi, Silvia & Missale, Alessandro, 2013. "Did High Debts Distort Loan and Grant Allocation to IDA Countries?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 44-62.
    4. Dong Hee Suh, 2018. "An Entropy Approach to Regional Differences in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Ethanol Usage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, January.
    5. Fleck, Robert K. & Kilby, Christopher, 2010. "Changing aid regimes? U.S. foreign aid from the Cold War to the War on Terror," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 185-197, March.
    6. Cogneau, Denis & Naudet, Jean-David, 2007. "Who Deserves Aid? Equality of Opportunity, International Aid, and Poverty Reduction," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 104-120, January.
    7. Muhammad Hafeez & Chunhui Yuan & Issam Khelfaoui & Almalki Sultan Musaad O & Muhammad Waqas Akbar & Liu Jie, 2019. "Evaluating the Energy Consumption Inequalities in the One Belt and One Road Region: Implications for the Environment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Nordtveit, Ingvild, 2014. "Does better governance and commitment to development attract general budget support?," Working Papers in Economics 02/14, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    9. Mark McGillivray, 2003. "Efficacité de l'aide et sélectivité : vers un concept élargi," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 11(4), pages 43-62.
    10. Rainer Thiele & Peter Nunnenkamp & Axel Dreher, 2007. "Do Donors Target Aid in Line with the Millennium Development Goals? A Sector Perspective of Aid Allocation," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 143(4), pages 596-630, December.
    11. Mark McGillivray, 2006. "Aid Allocation and Fragile States," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2006-01, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Montes-Rojas, Gabriel V., 2013. "Can Poor Countries Lobby for More US Bilateral Aid?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 77-87.
    13. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    14. Nagae, Akira & Katayama, Hajime & Takase, Koichi, 2022. "Donor aid allocation and accounting standards of recipients," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    15. Nuruddeen USMAN & Martins.O. APINRAN, 2019. "The Impact of Aid and Macroeconomic Policy on Growth in Nigeria: A Bounds Testing Approach," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(5), pages 581-603, May.
    16. Anke Hoeffler & Verity Outram, 2008. "Need, Merit or Self-Interest - What Determines the Allocation of Aid?," Economics Series Working Papers CSAE WPS/2008-19, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Jacky Amprou & Patrick Guillaumont & Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney, 2007. "Aid Selectivity According to Augmented Criteria," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 733-763, May.
    18. Reinsberg, Bernhard, 2015. "Foreign Aid Responses to Political Liberalization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 46-61.
    19. Jean-David Naudet & Denis Cogneau & Lisa Chauvet, 2008. "Sélectivité et égalité des chances dans l’allocation de l’aide internationale. Une analyse de la dernière décennie," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 186(5), pages 23-38.
    20. Kafayat Amusa & Nara Monkam & Nicola Viegi, 2016. "The Political and Economic Dynamics of Foreign Aid: A Case Study of United States and Chinese Aid to Sub-Sahara Africa," Working Papers 201628, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.

    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:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:13:p:2893-2902. 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.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    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.