Foreign Aid, Domestic Investment and Welfare

This paper examines the welfare implications of temporary foreign aid in a simple two-period, two-country model of trade. Domestic investment is endogenous, providing an important link between aid in period one and the terms of trade in periods one and two. Transfer-induced changes in the terms of trade redistribute present and future income between the donor and the recipient. In the presence of barriers to international borrowing and lending, such redistribution gives rise to the possibility of temporary aid being both potentially and strictly Pareto improving.     

Foreign Aid under Quantitative Restrictions: Welfare Effects and International Factor Mobility

Using a two‐country, general‐equilibrium model of international trade, this paper incorporates pre‐existing quantitative trade restrictions and international factor mobility into the transfer problem analysis. The effects of foreign aid on the welfare of both the donor and recipient nations are identified under each form of quantitative trade restriction: quotas and voluntary export restraints (VERs). In doing so, this paper identifies conditions under which international transfers are strictly Pareto‐improving (i.e. increase global welfare). A central result of this analysis is the direct welfare effect of a transfer received by a nation with quota‐constrained (VER‐constrained) imports is enhanced (may be enhanced) by a worsening of the recipient’s terms of trade.     

Tied to Capital or Untied Foreign Aid?

A two-country trade model of foreign aid is developed. The aid-receiving country suffers from Harris-Todaro type unemployment. Aid is either untied, tied to sector-specific capital, or tied to intersectorally mobile capital. These types of aid are compared by examining their terms-of-trade and welfare effects to show that (i) welfare paradoxes are possible, (ii) the world as a whole may gain from aid, (iii) a conflict of interest concerning the type of aid may arise between donor and recipient, and (iv) under plausible conditions untied aid is better for the recipient and the world.     

Migration,Foreign Aid and the Welfare State

Aspects related to the links between international migration, foreign aid and the welfare state are highlighted in this paper. Migration is modeled as a costly movement from an aid‐recipient developing country with low income and no welfare state, towards a rich donor, developed country with a well‐developed welfare state. Within this model, it is found, among other things, that the best response of the developed donor country is to increase aid as the co‐financing rate by the recipient country increases. When the immigration cost decreases, e.g. as a result of greater economic integration between the two countries, it is beneficial for the donor country to increase aid and the recipient country to increase the co‐financing rate.     

Foreign Aid as Prize: Incentives for a Pro-Poor Policy

The authors develop a theoretical model of foreign aid to analyze a method of disbursement of aid which induces the recipient government to follow a more pro-poor policy than it otherwise would do. In their two-period model, aid is given in the second period and the volume of it depends on the level of well-being of the target group in the first period. They find that this way of designing aid does increase the welfare of the poor. They also consider the situations where the donor and the recipient governments act simultaneously as well as sequentially, and they find that, by moving first in a sequential game, the donor country can, under certain conditions, increase the welfare of the poor and that of its own country compared to the case of simultaneous moves.     

Is tied aid bad for the recipient countries?

This paper examines the welfare effects of the exclusivity of foreign aid taking consideration of donor countries' strategic and self-interested economic motivations. Based on an oligopolistic model with strategic interactions between firms and governments providing foreign aid, we demonstrate that a higher exclusivity of foreign aid, taking the form of tied aid, increases the equilibrium amount of aid and the social welfare of the recipient country when the foreign aid policies are decided in a non-cooperative fashion between donor countries. However, when donor countries coordinate aid policies to maximize joint-welfare including recipient country's welfare, the lower exclusivity of foreign aid, taking the form of untied aid, will increase the equilibrium amount of aid and the global social welfare. The results implicate that when a credible enforcement mechanism for the cooperative regime for foreign aid is not available, tied aid is welfare dominant policy for both donor and recipient countries than untied aid.     

Foreign Aid, Infrastructure Development and Welfare: An Intertemporal Analysis

The author examines the welfare implications of foreign aid within the framework of a two-period, two-country model of international trade. It is up to the donor country to decide what fraction of any given aid package is to be made available for the recipient's immediate consumption in period one, and what part should be allocated for investment in infrastructure that expands the recipient's production possibilities in period two. The focus of the analysis is on the conditions under which both countries agree or disagree on the manner in which the aid funds should be divided between the two options.     

Trade agreements, bargaining and economic growth

Rebelo’s two-sector endogenous growth model is embedded within a two-country international trade framework. The two countries bargain over a trade agreement that specifies: (i) the size of the foreign aid that the richer country gives to the poorer one; (ii) the terms of the international trade that takes place after the aid is given. Foreign aid is given not because of generosity, but because it improves the capital allocation across the world and thus raises total world production. This world production surplus enables the rich country to raise its equilibrium consumption and welfare beyond their no-aid levels. To ensure it, the rich country uses a trade agreement to condition the aid on favorable terms of trade.     

Trade taxes and economic welfare

For a small country with no domestic distortions, trade taxes are generally viewed as welfare-reducing. This note shows that, in certain cases, a temporary trade tax may raise welfare in the present although it must lower welfare over the entire planning horizon.     

Financing Public Investment through Foreign Aid: Consequences for Economic Growth and Welfare*

The paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanism through which foreign aid affects macroeconomic performance. The authors find that the long‐run impact of an aid program and the nature of the transitional dynamics it generates depend crucially on (i) the elasticity of substitution in production, (ii) whether the aid flow is tied to investment activity or not, (iii) how the recipient government chooses to react to the flow of external assistance, and (iv) whether the aid program is permanent or temporary. Structural characteristics of the recipient are important in determining the extent to which external assistance can aid growth and welfare.     

The Financing of Foreign Aid and Welfare: Income Versus Consumption Tax

Empirical evidence shows that developed countries use income or consumption taxes to generate tax revenue, of which they transfer a certain fraction as aid to less developed countries. This paper constructs a two-country general equilibrium trade model that takes into account these realities, and examines the terms of trade, employment and welfare effects of international transfers when the donor country increases the fraction of its income or consumption tax revenue transferred as aid. The desirability of each method of aid financing is discussed from the viewpoint of national and world welfare, and conditions are identified under which aid improves world welfare with the one method of financing, and may worsen it with the other.     

Welfare effects of tied food aid

An important part of the overall U.S. aid program is Public Law 480 food aid. The design of the program seeks to satisfy numerous and often conflicting objectives. Several constraints have been placed on the use by recipient countries of that aid to insure that the intentions of the program are achieved. This paper examines the implications for recipient country welfare of both the traditional and the proposed restrictions on PL480 aid. It also seeks to clarify the interpretation of empirical work on the effects of this aid. It is shown that the net value of such commodity tied aid is simply the grant component of the subsidized sale and may easily be realized by substituting food aid imports for commercial imports. Restrictions which prevent aid recipients from doing so are costly to the recipient and could lead even to immuserization. Empirical evidence obtained by others is consistent with the notion that such restrictions are circumvented, where possible, by food aid recipients. The results presented indicate that a ‘Schultzian’ disincentive effect is characteristic of a closed economy. Typical interventions on the part of recipient country governments do not effectively reclose the economy. Hence, open economy models are more appropriate frameworks for evaluating the effects of PL480 aid.     

Aid,non‐traded goods,and growth

Abstract We examine the effects of foreign aid in a small recipient country with two traded goods, one non‐traded good, and two factors. Learning by doing and intersectoral knowledge spillovers contribute to endogenous growth. We obtain two main results. First, a permanent increase in untied aid raises (or lowers) the growth rate if and only if the non‐traded good is more capital intensive (or effective labour intensive) than the operating traded good. Second, a permanent increase in untied aid raises welfare if the non‐traded good is more capital intensive than the operating traded good; otherwise, it may raise or lower welfare.     

Transboundary Pollution and the Welfare Effects of Technology Transfer

We examine the welfare effects of a transfer of pollution abatement technology in a two-country model. In each country, one industry discharges pollution as a byproduct of output, and the sum of domestic and cross-border pollution decreases the productivity of the other industry. We show the effects of technology transfer on the terms of trade, pollution levels, and welfare. Technology transfer decreases the pollution affecting each country under certain conditions. We derive and interpret the conditions under which technology transfer enriches the donor and the recipient. The results essentially depend on the trade pattern and the fraction of cross-border pollution.     

Clientelism and aid

Using a model of probabilistic voting, we analyze the impact of aid on the political equilibrium in the recipient country or region. We consider politicians with mixed motives: they are interested in promoting social welfare but also value the benefit of holding office. We label as clientelistic the politician who most values the benefit of being in power. We find that the impact of aid on the political equilibrium and therefore on the quality of policy in the recipient country (using utilitarian social welfare as a benchmark) ultimately depends on the value of the elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption. When elasticity is low, the expected policy outcome gets further away from the socially desirable policy set. This substitution of policy quality for aid can help to explain the poor performance of aid in improving policy. Perhaps more surprising is the opposite case, which arises for high values of elasticity of marginal utility: an increase in aid tilts the equilibrium policy towards the welfare-maximizing policy set.     

Clientelism and aid

Using a model of probabilistic voting, we analyze the impact of aid on the political equilibrium in the recipient country or region. We consider politicians with mixed motives: they are interested in promoting social welfare but also value the benefit of holding office. We label as clientelistic the politician who most values the benefit of being in power. We find that the impact of aid on the political equilibrium and therefore on the quality of policy in the recipient country (using utilitarian social welfare as a benchmark) ultimately depends on the value of the elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption. When elasticity is low, the expected policy outcome gets further away from the socially desirable policy set. This substitution of policy quality for aid can help to explain the poor performance of aid in improving policy. Perhaps more surprising is the opposite case, which arises for high values of elasticity of marginal utility: an increase in aid tilts the equilibrium policy towards the welfare-maximizing policy set.     

Spatial Discrimination,Nations’ Size and Transportation Costs

In this paper we develop a spatial Cournot trade model with two unequally sized countries, using the geographical interpretation of the Hotelling line. We analyse the trade and welfare effects of international trade between these two countries. The welfare analysis indicates that in this framework the large country benefits from free trade and the small country may be hurt by opening to trade. This finding is contrary to the results of Shachmurove & Spiegel (1995) as well as Tharakan & Thisse (2002), who use similar models to analyze size effects in international trade, where the small country usually gains from trade and the large country may lose.     

Does German Development Aid Promote German Exports?

Abstract. This paper uses a static and dynamic gravity model of trade to investigate the link between German development aid and exports from Germany to the recipient countries. The findings indicate that, in the long run, German aid is associated with an increase in exports of goods that is larger than the aid flow, with a point estimate of 140% of the aid given. In addition, the evolution of the estimated coefficients over time shows an effect that is consistently positive but that oscillates over time. Interestingly, after a decrease in the 1990s, the estimated coefficients of the effect of aid on trade show a steady increase in the period between 2001 and 2005. The paper distinguishes among recipient countries and finds that the return on aid measured by German exports is higher for aid to countries considered 'strategic aid recipients' by the German government. We also find some evidence that aid given by other EU members reduces German exports.     

WELFARE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

Abstract.  This paper examines the welfare effects of aid tied to technology transfer in a two-country general equilibrium model. In the recipient country, some factors of production employed in a particular industry are difficult to use in other industries because their properties are specific to that industry. Technology transfer facilitates 'factor movement' and improves the efficiency of factor markets in the recipient. We identify and interpret the conditions under which technology transfer benefits the recipient and harms the donor. We also show that technology transfer can enrich (or harm) both the donor and the recipient under certain conditions.     

Donor ideology and types of foreign aid

We examine how donor government ideology influences the composition of foreign aid flows. We use data for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960–2009 and distinguish between multilateral and bilateral aid, grants and loans, recipient characteristics such as income and political institutions, tied and untied aid, and aid by sector. The results show that leftist governments increased the growth of bilateral grant aid, and more specifically grant aid to least developed and lower middle-income countries. Our findings confirm partisan politics hypotheses because grants are closely analogous to domestic social welfare transfer payments, and poverty and inequality are of greatest concern for less developed recipient countries.