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The Politics of Foreign Aid

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Author Info
Wolfgang Mayer
Pascalis Raimondos-Møller

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Abstract

Why do donor countries give foreign aid? The answers found in the literature are: (i) because donor countries care for recipient countries (e.g. altruism), and/or (ii) because there exist distortions that make the indirect gains from foreign aid (e.g. terms of trade effects) to be larger than the direct losses. This paper proposes a third answer to the above question, namely that aid is determined through the domestic political process of the donor country. The paper demonstrates how foreign aid affects the donor country’s income distribution and how, in a direct democracy, the majority of voters might benefit from foreign aid giving even though the country’s social welfare is reduced.

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Paper provided by Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics in its series EPRU Working Paper Series with number 99-07.

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Handle: RePEc:kud:epruwp:99-07

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Sajal Lahiri & Pascalis Raimondos-Møller, 1999. "Lobbying by Ethnic Groups and Aid Allocation," EPRU Working Paper Series 99-05, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics, revised Oct 2003. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "Politics and Trade Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 1269, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Alberto Alesina & David Dollar, 1998. "Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?," NBER Working Papers 6612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Bhagwati, Jagdish N & Brecher, Richard A & Hatta, Tatsuo, 1983. "The Generalized Theory of Transfers and Welfare: Bilateral Transfers in a Multilateral World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 606-18, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-85, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Rodrik, Dani, 1995. "Political economy of trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1457-1494 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Boone, Peter, 1996. "Politics and the effectiveness of foreign aid," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 289-329, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Burnside, Craig & Dollar, David, 1997. "Aid, policies, and growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1777, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Lahiri, Sajal & Raimondos-Møller, Pascalis, 2000. "Special Interest Politics and Aid Fungibility," CEPR Discussion Papers 2482, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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