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Who deserves aid? Equality of opportunity,international aid and poverty reduction

Author

Listed:
  • Denis Cogneau

    (DIAL, IRD, Paris)

  • Jean-David Naudet

    (AFD, Département de la Recherche)

Abstract

(english) We build and implement a normative procedure to allocate international aid based on equality of opportunity concerning the risk of poverty. This is an alternative to Collier and Dollar’s proposal (2001) which stresses the impact of aid on worldwide poverty reduction. The big problem with their approach, as regards distributive justice, is that it leaves very great inequality in poverty risk between inhabitants of countries with widely varying structural disadvantages. We draw on post-welfarist theories of social justice, especially those of John Roemer. However our proposal is very different to that of Llavador and Roemer (2001), which has serious methodological errors and reaches contradictory conclusions. Our proposed allocations, like those of Collier and Dollar, differ from current aid allocation by giving more to the poorest countries. Apart from this agreement, our equality of opportunity principle takes account of structural disadvantages to growth rather than quality of past policies. Our kind of allocation shares out poverty risks much more fairly among the world’s population, while reducing global poverty almost as effectively as Collier and Dollar's. _________________________________ (français) Nous élaborons et mettons en oeuvre une procédure normative d’allocation de l’aide internationale entre les pays, fondée sur le principe de l’égalité des chances vis-à-vis du risque de pauvreté. Cette procédure constitue une alternative à celle de Collier et Dollar (2001) qui maximise l’impact de l’aide sur la réduction de la pauvreté dans le monde. Du point de vue de la justice distributive, l’allocation de Collier et Dollar présente en effet l’inconvénient majeur de laisser subsister de très larges inégalités de risques de pauvreté entre des individus vivant dans des pays dont les handicaps structurels sont très différents. Notre travail s’inspire des théories « post-welfaristes » de la justice sociale, et en particulier de l’approche de John Roemer. Il fait toutefois une proposition très différente de celle de Llavador et Roemer (2001) qui comporte d’importants défauts de méthode et aboutit selon nous à des résultats contradictoires. Comme les allocations préconisées par Collier et Dollar, les solutions proposées ici diffèrent de la répartition actuelle de l’aide dans le sens où elles privilégient les pays les plus pauvres. Au-delà de ce résultat commun, le principe d’égalité des chances que nous mettons en avant conduit à prendre en compte les handicaps structurels de croissance plutôt que la qualité des politiques passées. Enfin, le type d’allocation que nous proposons égalise beaucoup mieux les risques de pauvreté entre les citoyens du monde, tout en réduisant presque aussi efficacement la pauvreté mondiale que l’allocation de Collier et Dollar.

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Cogneau & Jean-David Naudet, 2004. "Who deserves aid? Equality of opportunity,international aid and poverty reduction," Working Papers DT/2004/10, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
  • Handle: RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200410
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign Aid; International aid; Equality of Opportunity; Poverty Reduction; Aide internationale; Egalité des chances; réduction de la pauvreté;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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