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Are Debt Repayment Incentives Undermined by Foreign Aid?

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This paper investigates the effects of inflows of foreign aid on the debt repayment behaviour of developing countries. The paper first delineates the overall incentives to committing to timely repayment in a war of attrition-type model. A set of panel estimates including 93 developing countries shows that foreign aid is strongly negatively associated with repayment incentives. The findings pertain to both total debt service and service on publically guaranteed debt. Only countries that tend to vote predominantly with the US in the UN General Assembly are not significantly discouraged from servicing their debt by inflows of foreign aid.

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  • Bjørnskov, Christian & Schröder, Philipp J.H., 2010. "Are Debt Repayment Incentives Undermined by Foreign Aid?," Working Papers 10-20, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:aareco:2010_020
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    Cited by:

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    3. Fløgstad, Cathrin N. & Nordtveit, Ingvild, 2014. "Lending to developing countries: How do official creditors respond to sovereign defaults?," Working Papers in Economics 01/14, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.

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    Keywords

    Foreign aid; external debt; debt service; political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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