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Global Samaritans? Donor Election Cycles and the Allocation of Humanitarian Aid

Author

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  • Kurt Annen

    (Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph)

  • Scott Strickland

    (Ministry of Community and Social Services, Government of Ontario)

Abstract

This paper finds a large causal donor election cycle effect in humanitarian aid allocations: On average, humanitarian aid increases by 54% in the year before elections. Our identifcation strategy consists of focusing on donors with fixed election dates, making elections clearly exogenous. Furthermore, we find large interaction effects with natural and human disasters. This evidence is consistent with our theory that incumbent governments responding to humanitarian disasters can increase voter support for their party and insure against the political fall-out of not being seen as representatives of a country with global interests and influence. However, it is important to stress that despite our findings, human and natural disasters explain a substantially larger share of the overall variation in humanitarian aid observed in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Annen & Scott Strickland, 2016. "Global Samaritans? Donor Election Cycles and the Allocation of Humanitarian Aid," Working Papers 1607, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:gue:guelph:2016-07
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ryan Cardwell & Pascal L. Ghazalian, 2020. "The Effects of Untying International Food Assistance: The Case of Canada," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1056-1078, August.
    2. Christopher Kilby & Carolyn McWhirter, 2022. "The World Bank COVID-19 response: Politics as usual?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 627-656, July.
    3. Cahan, Dodge, 2019. "Electoral cycles in government employment: Evidence from US gubernatorial elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 122-138.
    4. Christian Bommer & Axel Dreher & Marcello Perez-Alvarez, 2018. "Regional and Ethnic Favoritism in the Allocation of Humanitarian Aid," CESifo Working Paper Series 7038, CESifo.
    5. Kurt Annen & Stephen Kosempel, 2018. "Why Aid-to-GDP Ratios?," Working Papers 1801, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    6. Annen, Kurt & Knack, Stephen, 2018. "On the delegation of aid implementation to multilateral agencies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 295-305.
    7. Mogge, Lukas & McDonald, Morag & Knoth, Christian & Teickner, Henning & Purevtseren, Myagmartseren & Pebesma, Edzer & Kraehnert, Kati, 2023. "Allocation of humanitarian aid after a weather disaster," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    8. Bommer, Christian & Dreher, Axel & Perez-Alvarez, Marcello, 2022. "Home bias in humanitarian aid: The role of regional favoritism in the allocation of international disaster relief," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    9. Trinh, Trong-Anh & Feeny, Simon & Posso, Alberto, 2022. "Political connections and post-disaster assistance in rural Vietnam," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Andreas Fuchs & Hannes Öhler, 2021. "Does private aid follow the flag? An empirical analysis of humanitarian assistance," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 671-705, March.
    11. Michael Batu & Darren Larue, 2019. "Aiding Elections? Foreign Aid and Donor-Country Election Cycles," Working Papers 1902, University of Windsor, Department of Economics.
    12. 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).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Humanitarian aid; election cycles; aid allocation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

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