IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/szg/worpap/0304.html

Aid, Governance, and Private Foreign Investment: Some Puzzling Findings and a Possible Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Harms

    (Study Center Gerzensee and University of Konstanz)

  • Matthias Lutz

    (University of St. Gallen)

Abstract

Does offcial aid pave the road for private foreign investment or does it suffocate private initiative by diverting resources towards unproductive activities? In this paper we explore this question using data for a large number of developing and emerging economies. Controlling for countries’ institutional environment, we find that, evaluated at the mean, the marginal effect of aid on private foreign investment is close to zero. Surprisingly, however, the effect is strictly positive for countries in which private agents face a substantial regulatory burden. After testing the robustness of this result, we offer a theoretical model that is able to rationalize our puzzling observation.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Harms & Matthias Lutz, 2003. "Aid, Governance, and Private Foreign Investment: Some Puzzling Findings and a Possible Explanation," Working Papers 03.04, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    • Handle: RePEc:szg:worpap:0304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.szgerzensee.ch/fileadmin/Dateien_Anwender/Dokumente/working_papers/wp-0304.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: None
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Kilby, Christopher, 2005. "World Bank lending and regulation," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 384-407, December.
    2. Philipp Harms & Michael Rauber, 2004. "Foreign aid and developing countries' creditworthiness," Working Papers 04.05, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    3. Kilby, Christopher, 2005. "Aid and regulation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 325-345, May.
    4. Philipp Harms & Matthias Lutz, 2004. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Foreign Aid: A Survey," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2004 2004-11, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    5. Hidemi KIMURA & Yasuyuki TODO, 2007. "Is Foreign Aid a Vanguard of FDI? A Gravity-Equation Approach," Discussion papers 07007, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Rasmane Ouedraogo & Windemanegda Sandrine Sourouema & Hamidou Sawadogo, 2021. "Aid, growth and institutions in Sub‐Saharan Africa: New insights using a multiple growth regime approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 107-142, January.
    7. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:szg:worpap:0304. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://szgerzensee.ch/ .

    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.