IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcre/15-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Foreign Aid, Poor Data, and the Fragility of Macroeconomic Inference

Author

Listed:
  • Lionel Roger

Abstract

The link between foreign aid and economic growth remains a controversial issue in the literature, and a large share of the disagreement could be explained by differences in the data employed. Using GDP data from three different versions of the Penn World Table and the World Development Indicators, I investigate the robustness of Juselius, Møller and Tarp (2014)'s (JMT) conclusions about long-run aid effectiveness. The analysis is carried out in two stages. First, I apply the same models as developed by JMT to the new datasets. Second, I re-specify the Cointegrated VAR models using the same criteria as JMT, but limit the analysis to the four most and least consistent countries respectively. The first exercise shows that results change in a significant manner in approximately 10 of the 36 countries examined. The second exercise shows that the if the models are re-specified for each country and dataset individually as a function of the data, this leads to more qualitative changes in the conclusions.

Suggested Citation

  • Lionel Roger, 2015. "Foreign Aid, Poor Data, and the Fragility of Macroeconomic Inference," Discussion Papers 2015-06, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcre:15/06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/credit/documents/papers/2015/15-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    2. Pedro M G Martins, 2010. "Fiscal Dynamics in Ethiopia: A Cointegrated VAR Model with Quarterly Data," Discussion Papers 10/05, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    3. Katarina Juselius & Abdulaziz Reshid & Finn Tarp, 2017. "The Real Exchange Rate, Foreign Aid and Macroeconomic Transmission Mechanisms in Tanzania and Ghana," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(7), pages 1075-1103, July.
    4. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-1151, December.
    5. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Subramanian, Arvind, 2011. "Aid, Dutch disease, and manufacturing growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 106-118, January.
    6. Dollar, David & Easterly, William, 1999. "The Search for the Key: Aid, Investment and Policies in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 8(4), pages 546-577, December.
    7. Temple, Jonathan & Van de Sijpe, Nicolas, 2017. "Foreign aid and domestic absorption," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 431-443.
    8. Theodore Breton, 2012. "Penn World Table 7.0: Are the Data Seriously Flawed?," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 10574, Universidad EAFIT.
    9. Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), 2010. "Handbook of Development Economics," Handbook of Development Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 6.
    10. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    11. Johnson, Simon & Larson, William & Papageorgiou, Chris & Subramanian, Arvind, 2013. "Is newer better? Penn World Table Revisions and their impact on growth estimates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 255-274.
    12. Fiseha Gebregziabher, 2014. "The Long‐Run Macroeconomic Effects Of Aid And Disaggregated Aid In Ethiopia," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 520-540, May.
    13. Morten Jerven, 2013. "Comparability of GDP estimates in Sub-Saharan Africa: The effect of Revisions in Sources and Methods Since Structural Adjustment," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59, pages 16-36, October.
    14. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    15. Therése Pettersson & Peter Wallensteen, 2015. "Armed conflicts, 1946–2014," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 52(4), pages 536-550, July.
    16. Katarina Juselius & Niels Framroze Møller & Finn Tarp, 2014. "The Long-Run Impact of Foreign Aid in 36 African Countries: Insights from Multivariate Time Series Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(2), pages 153-184, April.
    17. Kevin D. Hoover & Soren Johansen & Katarina Juselius, 2008. "Allowing the Data to Speak Freely: The Macroeconometrics of the Cointegrated Vector Autoregression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 251-255, May.
    18. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2008. "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 643-665, November.
    19. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    20. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    21. David Roodman, 2007. "The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-Country Empirics," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 255-277, May.
    22. Robert Osei & Oliver Morrissey & Tim Lloyd, 2005. "The fiscal effects of aid in Ghana," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(8), pages 1037-1053.
    23. Natalia Ponomareva & Hajime Katayama, 2010. "Does the version of the Penn World Tables matter? An analysis of the relationship between growth and volatility," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 152-179, February.
    24. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2007. "Relative Prices and Relative Prosperity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 562-585, June.
    25. Boone, Peter, 1996. "Politics and the effectiveness of foreign aid," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 289-329, February.
    26. Dierk Herzer & Oliver Morrissey, 2013. "Foreign aid and domestic output in the long run," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(4), pages 723-748, December.
    27. William Easterly & Ross Levine & David Roodman, 2004. "Aid, Policies, and Growth: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 774-780, June.
    28. Oliver Morrissey, 2001. "Does aid increase growth?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 1(1), pages 37-50, January.
    29. 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.
    30. William Easterly, 2003. "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 23-48, Summer.
    31. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    32. Breton, Theodore R., 2012. "Penn World Table 7.0: Are the data flawed?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 208-210.
    33. Juselius, Katarina, 2006. "The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199285679.
    34. Pedro M. G. Martins, 2010. "Fiscal Dynamics in Ethiopia: The Cointegrated VAR Model with Quarterly Data," Working Paper Series 0910, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abrams M E Tagem, 2017. "Aid, Taxes and Government Spending: A Heterogeneous Cointegrated Panel Analysis," Discussion Papers 2017-02, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.

    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. Roger, Lionel, 2019. "A replication of "The long-run impact of foreign aid in 36 African countries: Insights from multivariate time series analysis" (Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2014)," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-53.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Axel Dreher & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2012. "Does foreign aid really raise per capita income? A time series perspective," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 45(1), pages 288-313, February.
    5. Katarina Juselius & Niels Framroze Møller & Finn Tarp, 2014. "The Long-Run Impact of Foreign Aid in 36 African Countries: Insights from Multivariate Time Series Analysis," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(2), pages 153-184, April.
    6. 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.
    7. Okullo, Samuel J. & Reynès, Frédéric, 2011. "Can reserve additions in mature crude oil provinces attenuate peak oil?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 5755-5764.
    8. Patrick GUILLAUMONT, 2009. "Aid effectiveness for poverty reduction: macroeconomic overview and emerging issues," Working Papers P05, FERDI.
    9. Museru, Malimu & Toerien, Francois & Gossel, Sean, 2014. "The Impact of Aid and Public Investment Volatility on Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 138-147.
    10. KIMURA Hidemi & TODO Yasuyuki, 2007. "Is Foreign Aid a Vanguard of FDI? A Gravity-Equation Approach," Discussion papers 07007, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    11. Temple, Jonathan & Van de Sijpe, Nicolas, 2017. "Foreign aid and domestic absorption," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 431-443.
    12. 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.
    13. Kyriakos C. Neanidis & Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2007. "The Allocation of volatile aid and economic growth: Evidence and a suggestive theory," Discussion Paper Series 2007_07, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Mar 2007.
    14. Nuruddeen USMAN & Martins.O. APINRAN, 2019. "The Impact of Aid and Macroeconomic Policy on Growth in Nigeria: A Bounds Testing Approach," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(5), pages 581-603, May.
    15. Chauvet, Lisa & Ehrhart, Hélène, 2018. "Aid and growth: evidence from firm-level data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 461-477.
    16. Simeon Djankov & Jose Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. "The curse of aid," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 169-194, September.
    17. Patrick Guillaumont & Laurent Wagner, 2014. "Aid Effectiveness for Poverty Reduction: Lessons from Cross‑country Analyses, with a Special Focus on Vulnerable Countries," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 22(HS01), pages 217-261.
    18. Ziyoda Asatullaeva & Reza Fathollah Zadeh Aghdam & Nisar Ahmad & Laylo Tashpulatova, 2021. "The impact of foreign aid on economic development: A systematic literature review and content analysis of the top 50 most influential papers," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 717-751, May.
    19. Łukasz Marć, 2017. "The Impact of Aid on Total Government Expenditures: New Evidence on Fungibility," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 627-663, August.
    20. Tierney, Michael J. & Nielson, Daniel L. & Hawkins, Darren G. & Roberts, J. Timmons & Findley, Michael G. & Powers, Ryan M. & Parks, Bradley & Wilson, Sven E. & Hicks, Robert L., 2011. "More Dollars than Sense: Refining Our Knowledge of Development Finance Using AidData," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1891-1906.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time-Series Models; Foreign Aid; Economic Growth;
    All these keywords.

    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:not:notcre:15/06. 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: Hilary Hughes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cenotuk.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.