IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v87y2025icp710-727.html

How trade effect of foreign aid evolves: Evidence from the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Sun, Zesheng
  • Zhao, Jiahua
  • Chen, Hao

Abstract

Unlike the average trade effect estimation of foreign aid discussed in previous studies, this paper explores the trade effect evolution of foreign aid and provides some explanations for it by employing a two-step methodology: a varying-coefficient panel data gravity model and controlling for the impact of aid competition. We utilize the data of the United States as a donor from 1962 to 2018 to show the evolving trade effect of foreign aid. Several endogeneity and robust tests provide support for the evolving trade effect of aid. The second step provides evidence that donors’ scale of aid, and the (export) industry structure all impact the trade effect of aid. The scale of aid and the (export) industry structure play a moderator role in their impact of aid concentration and the scale of aid on the trade effect, respectively. The study also estimates the threshold values of moderating variables.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun, Zesheng & Zhao, Jiahua & Chen, Hao, 2025. "How trade effect of foreign aid evolves: Evidence from the United States," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 710-727.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:710-727
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.06.031
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625002607
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.06.031?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hendrik W. Kruse & Inmaculada Martínez‐Zarzoso, 2021. "Transfers in the gravity equation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 410-442, February.
    2. Wagner, Don, 2003. "Aid and trade--an empirical study," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 153-173, June.
    3. Harold Creusen & Arjan Lejour, 2013. "Market entry and economic diplomacy," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 504-507, March.
    4. Felbermayr, Gabriel J. & Toubal, Farid, 2010. "Cultural proximity and trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 279-293, February.
    5. Hongyi Xu & Zesheng Sun & Hao Chen, 2025. "Estimating the Evolving Trade Effect of Foreign Aid in the Context of Aid Competition: Evidence From European Countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 584-606, March.
    6. Jan Pettersson & Lars Johansson, 2013. "Aid, Aid for Trade, and bilateral trade: An empirical study," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 866-894, September.
    7. Slobodan Djajić & Sajal Lahiri & Pascalis Raimondos‐Møller, 2004. "Logic of Aid in an Intertemporal Setting," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 151-161, February.
    8. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "Aid for trade and export diversification in recipient‐countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 396-418, February.
    9. Xiaohua Bao & Larry D. Qiu, 2012. "How Do Technical Barriers to Trade Influence Trade?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 691-706, September.
    10. 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.
    11. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2014. "US Food Aid and Civil Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1630-1666, June.
    12. Temple, Jonathan & Van de Sijpe, Nicolas, 2017. "Foreign aid and domestic absorption," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 431-443.
    13. 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.
    14. Nora Aboushady & Georges Harb & Chahir Zaki, 2025. "Aid for trade and export performance of recipient countries: The moderating role of institutions," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 925-953, May.
    15. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Adriana Cardozo, 2013. "Does foreign aid promote recipient exports to donor countries?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(3), pages 505-535, September.
    16. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Arabinda Basistha & Jonathan Munemo, 2007. "Foreign aid and export performance: a panel data analysis of developing countries," Working Papers 2007-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    17. Helpman, Elhanan, 1987. "Imperfect competition and international trade: Evidence from fourteen industrial countries," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 62-81, March.
    18. Jorgen Levin & Hans Lofgren & Sebastien Dessus, 2015. "Impact of Aid and Public Spending—A Macro–micro Framework," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(8), pages 1479-1495, November.
    19. Minasyan, Anna, 2016. "Your development or mine? Effects of donor–recipient cultural differences on the aid-growth nexus," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 309-325.
    20. Calì, Massimiliano & te Velde, Dirk Willem, 2011. "Does Aid for Trade Really Improve Trade Performance?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 725-740, May.
    21. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    22. Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & M. D. Parra & Stephan Klasen, 2014. "Does Aid Promote Donor Exports? Commercial Interest versus Instrumental Philanthropy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 559-587, November.
    23. Savin, Ivan & Marson, Marta & Sutormina, Marina, 2020. "How different aid flows affect different trade flows: Evidence from Africa and its largest donors," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 119-136.
    24. Blair, Robert A. & Marty, Robert & Roessler, Philip, 2022. "Foreign Aid and Soft Power: Great Power Competition in Africa in the Early Twenty-first Century," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(3), pages 1355-1376, July.
    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. Liu, Ailan & Tang, Bo, 2018. "US and China aid to Africa: Impact on the donor-recipient trade relations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 46-65.
    2. Philipp H�hne & Birgit Meyer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2014. "Who Benefits from Aid for Trade? Comparing the Effects on Recipient versus Donor Exports," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(9), pages 1275-1288, September.
    3. Barthel, Fabian & Neumayer, Eric & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Selaya, Pablo, 2014. "Competition for Export Markets and the Allocation of Foreign Aid: The Role of Spatial Dependence among Donor Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 350-365.
    4. Savin, Ivan & Marson, Marta & Sutormina, Marina, 2020. "How different aid flows affect different trade flows: Evidence from Africa and its largest donors," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 119-136.
    5. Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D. & Stephan Klasen & Florian Johannsen, 2013. "Does German Development Aid Promote German Exports and German Employment? A Sectoral-Level Analysis," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 227, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research, revised 18 Dec 2013.
    6. Martínez-Zarzoso Inmaculada & Nowak-Lehmann Felicitas & Klasen Stephan & Johannsen Florian, 2016. "Does German Development Aid boost German Exports and German Employment? A Sectoral Level Analysis," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(1), pages 71-94, February.
    7. Dreher, Axel & Lang, Valentin & Reinsberg, Bernhard, 2024. "Aid effectiveness and donor motives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2019. "Effects of Foreign Aid on Income through International Trade," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 29-52.
    9. Bernard Hoekman & Anirudh Shingal, 2020. "Aid for trade and international transactions in goods and services," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 320-340, May.
    10. Kruse, Hendrik W. & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inma, 2016. "Transfers in the gravity equation: The case of foreign aid," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 288, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    11. Jean-Louis COMBES & Rasmané OUEDRAOGO, 2014. "Does Pro-cyclical Aid Lead to Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? An Empirical Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201424, CERDI.
    12. Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & M. D. Parra & Stephan Klasen, 2014. "Does Aid Promote Donor Exports? Commercial Interest versus Instrumental Philanthropy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 559-587, November.
    13. Stender, Frederik & Vogel, Tim, 2025. "What role for aid for trade in (deep) PTA relations? Empirical evidence from gravity model estimations," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    14. Hendrik W. Kruse & Inmaculada Martínez‐Zarzoso, 2021. "Transfers in the gravity equation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 410-442, February.
    15. Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2019. "Effects of Foreign Aid on Income through International Trade," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 29-52.
    16. Shuhei Nishitateno & Hayato Umetani, 2023. "Heterogeneous effects of Aid‐for‐Trade on donor exports: Why is Japan different?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 1117-1145, August.
    17. Hendrik KRUSE & Thais NUNEZ-ROCHA & Camélia TURCU, 2019. "Infrastructure aid for resource trade? The crossroads of strategy and sustainable development," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2728, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    18. Hoekman, Bernard & Shingal, Anirudh, 2024. "Development Goals, commercial interest and EU Aid-for-Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    19. Inma Martínez-Zarzoso & F. D. Nowak-Lehmann & S. Klasen, 2017. "Aid and Its Impact on the Donor’s Export Industry: The Dutch Case," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(4), pages 769-786, August.
    20. JunYun Kim & Hongshik Lee & Joonhyung Lee, 2022. "Does Aid for Trade Promote Vertical Specialization?," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 127-158, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid

    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:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:710-727. 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/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    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.