IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/101841.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effect of international development assistance (IDA) on conflict. A fuzzy regression discontinuity approach

Author

Listed:
  • Adam, Antonis
  • Tsarsitalidou, Sofia

Abstract

In this paper we try to explore the relationship between the World Bank’s international development assistance (IDA) and domestic conflict. As IDA is distributed only to countries that fall below an (ad hoc) income threshold, we employ a (fuzzy) regression discontinuity approach to estimate the causal effect of IDA on conflict. Our results suggest that IDA leads to a decrease in minor conflict events, such as anti-government demonstrations and riots and in an increase in major conflict events like assassinations of political leaders and revolutions. Moreover, IDA is associated with an increase in coup attempts and autocratic regime transitions. These results suggest that foreign aid may “win the hearts and minds of the population”, by increasing popular support for the government, and at the same time increase conflict over lootable aid rents.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam, Antonis & Tsarsitalidou, Sofia, 2020. "The effect of international development assistance (IDA) on conflict. A fuzzy regression discontinuity approach," MPRA Paper 101841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:101841
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/101841/1/MPRA_paper_101841.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernesto Dal Bó & Robert Powell, 2009. "A Model of Spoils Politics," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 207-222, January.
    2. Angeles, Luis & Neanidis, Kyriakos C., 2009. "Aid effectiveness: the role of the local elite," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 120-134, September.
    3. Gordon Tullock, 1971. "The paradox of revolution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 89-99, September.
    4. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    5. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    6. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell, 2018. "On the Effect of Bias Estimation on Coverage Accuracy in Nonparametric Inference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(522), pages 767-779, April.
    7. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    8. Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben & Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben, 2012. "Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6129, The World Bank.
    9. Becker, Sascha O. & Egger, Peter H. & von Ehrlich, Maximilian, 2010. "Going NUTS: The effect of EU Structural Funds on regional performance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 578-590, October.
    10. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2000. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War," CSAE Working Paper Series 2000-18, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. de Ree, Joppe & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2009. "Aiding violence or peace? The impact of foreign aid on the risk of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 301-313, March.
    12. 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.
    13. Burcu Savun & Daniel C. Tirone, 2011. "Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 233-246, April.
    14. Sexton, Renard, 2016. "Aid as a Tool against Insurgency: Evidence from Contested and Controlled Territory in Afghanistan," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 731-749, November.
    15. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    16. Axel Dreher & Steffen Lohmann, 2015. "Aid and growth at the regional level," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 31(3-4), pages 420-446.
    17. Askarov, Zohid & Doucouliagos, Hristos, 2015. "Development Aid and Growth in Transition Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 383-399.
    18. Sebastian Galiani & Stephen Knack & Lixin Colin Xu & Ben Zou, 2017. "The effect of aid on growth: evidence from a Quasi-experiment," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-33, March.
    19. Hahn, Jinyong & Todd, Petra & Van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 2001. "Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 201-209, January.
    20. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    21. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    22. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    23. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    24. Heckman, James J. & Lalonde, Robert J. & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1999. "The economics and econometrics of active labor market programs," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1865-2097, Elsevier.
    25. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "AID, Policy and Peace: Reducing the risks of civil conflict," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 435-450.
    26. Crost, Benjamin & Felter, Joseph H. & Johnston, Patrick B., 2016. "Conditional cash transfers, civil conflict and insurgent influence: Experimental evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 171-182.
    27. Ari Hyytinen & Jaakko Meriläinen & Tuukka Saarimaa & Otto Toivanen & Janne Tukiainen, 2018. "When does regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 1019-1051, July.
    28. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2010. "Do elites benefit from democracy and foreign aid in developing countries?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 115-124, July.
    29. Todd Moss & Stephanie Majerowicz, 2012. "No Longer Poor: Ghana’s New Income Status and Implications of Graduation from IDA," Working Papers 300, Center for Global Development.
    30. Azam, Jean-Paul, 1995. "How to Pay for the Peace? A Theoretical Framework with References to African Countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 83(1-2), pages 173-184, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Adam, Antonis & Tsarsitalidou, Sofia, 2022. "The effect of international development association's (IDA) aid on conflict. A fuzzy regression discontinuity approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Gehring, Kai & Kaplan, Lennart C. & Wong, Melvin H.L., 2022. "China and the World Bank—How contrasting development approaches affect the stability of African states," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    5. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    6. M. Christian Lehmann, 2020. "Aiding refugees, aiding peace?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1687-1704, September.
    7. Axel Dreher & Valentin F. Lang & Sebastian Ziaja, 2017. "Foreign Aid in Areas of Limited Statehood," CESifo Working Paper Series 6340, CESifo.
    8. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    9. Augusto Cerqua & Guido Pellegrini & Ornella Tarola, 2022. "Can regional policies shape migration flows?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(3), pages 515-536, June.
    10. Gehring, Kai & Langlotz, Sarah & Kienberger, Stefan, 2018. "Stimulant or depressant? Resource-related income shocks and conflict," Working Papers 0652, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    11. Raphael J. Nawrotzki & Verena Gantner & Jana Balzer & Thomas Wencker & Sabine Brüntrup-Seidemann, 2022. "Strategic Allocation of Development Projects in Post-Conflict Regions: A Gender Perspective for Colombia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, February.
    12. Chauvet, Lisa & Ehrhart, Hélène, 2018. "Aid and growth: evidence from firm-level data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 461-477.
    13. Zürcher, Christoph, 2017. "What Do We (Not) Know About Development Aid and Violence? A Systematic Review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 506-522.
    14. Jun Ma & Zhengfei Yu, 2020. "Empirical Likelihood Covariate Adjustment for Regression Discontinuity Designs," Papers 2008.09263, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Axel Dreher & Sarah Langlotz, 2020. "Aid and growth: New evidence using an excludable instrument," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 1162-1198, August.
    18. Sascha O. Becker & Peter H. Egger & Maximilian von Ehrlich, 2013. "Absorptive Capacity and the Growth and Investment Effects of Regional Transfers: A Regression Discontinuity Design with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-77, November.
    19. Potrafke, Niklas & Roesel, Felix, 2020. "The urban–rural gap in healthcare infrastructure: does government ideology matter?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 340-351.
    20. repec:elg:eechap:15325_15 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Pietro Bonaldi & Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas, 2018. "An Auction-Based Test of Private Information in an Interdealer FX Market," Working papers 1, Red Investigadores de Economía.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign aid; conflict; regression discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:101841. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.