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The Dynamics of Aid and Political Rights
Author(s) -
Fielding David
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/twec.12192
Subject(s) - politics , economics , aid effectiveness , panel data , democracy , corporate governance , quality (philosophy) , property rights , good governance , variation (astronomy) , aggregate (composite) , public economics , economic system , development economics , macroeconomics , developing country , political science , economic growth , econometrics , microeconomics , finance , law , philosophy , physics , epistemology , astrophysics , materials science , composite material
Using cross‐country panel data, we explore the extent to which the variation over time in measures of democracy and political rights can be explained by changes in aid inflows, thus providing direct evidence on the impact of innovations in donor policy on the quality of recipient governance. We distinguish between the short‐run and long‐run effects of changes in aid. Our results are very different from those based on cross‐country variation in aid inflows. We find evidence of large differences between the effect of aid for political reform and the effect of other types of aid in aggregate. These effects also depend on the recipient country's initial level of political development. There is no evidence that aid intended for political reform has achieved its objective, and in some countries, it may be counterproductive. However, aggregate aid can have a beneficial effect on political rights.