This thesis provides an empirical indication of how the objectives of official development assistance (ODA), granted by the top five donors, affects the aid policy in the MENA region during the period 1990-2012, and how these objectives have changed during the period 2005-2012. As a first result, alleviation of poverty, commercial interests and the democratic status of the recipient altogether influence aid policy in the region. Recipients’ need and commercial interest are both important objectives for the donors but they have both lost some of its impact in recent times. Historical ties with France affect the aid policy in the region and strategic interests of the donors appear to have an unexpected effect on aid allocation behavior e.g. oil rich countries receive less aid, ceteris paribus. The democratic status of the recipient has a positive significant effect on received aid for the average recipient and the impact has increased with time in the MENA region. Moreover, donors react differently to recipients’ needs, commercial interest and democracy and there are also several differences among recipients with abundant oil resources and those with insignificant oil resources.

This study analyses which factors has driven the allocation of Swedish aid between 1975 and 2003. The results are then compared to the official policy. The general goal of Swedish aid is to “help to raise the living standard for the poor”, but there are more factors than income status that affect allocation. Allocation of Swedish aid is affected by a set of criteria for the choice of recipient. The details and the goals of aid have changed over time even if the core has remained the same. According to the official policy, Swedish aid should be used to take responsibility across borders, to contribute to a greater common market and a peaceful development. It has been considered important that the recipients’ needs can be matched by Sweden’s capacity and that aid is developed from the recipients’ situation. The recipients’ absorption capacity is thus an important criterion. Summarized, Swedish aid should be used to promote democracy, fight corruption and contribute to more equal societies. In this study we do not find any significant relation between the official policy and actual allocation. A Generalized Least Square regression with Random Effects points out only two significant variables, the recipients’ size of trade (openness) and their former (British) colonial status. Instead of rewarding open economies, Swedish aid has been allocated to more closed economies which tend to be more corrupt. Although the majority of the recipient countries are former colonies, we find that former British colonies are favoured. This allocation is believed to be a result of the historical development of aid and practical circumstances such as language etc... / Denna studie analyserar vilka faktorer som har drivit Svenskt bistånd mellan 1975 och 2003. Resultaten jämförs sedan med officiell policy. Det allmänna målet med Svensk bistånd enligt officiell policy är att ”hjälpa till att höja levnadsstandarden för de fattiga”, men det finns fler faktorer än inkomstnivå som påverkar allokeringen. Allokering av svenskt bistånd påverkas av bestämda "länderkriteria". Detaljerna och biståndets mål har förändrats över tiden även om kärnan har varit densamma. Enligt officiell policy så ska svenskt bistånd användas för att ta ansvar som sträcker sig över gränserna, för att bidra till en större gemensam marknad samt en fredlig utveckling. Det har ansetts vara viktigt att mottagarnas behov kan mötas av Sveriges kapacitet och att biståndet är sammansatt utifrån mottagarnas situation. Mottagarnas absorptionskapacitet är således det ett viktigt kriterium. Sammanfattningsvis ska svenskt bistånd främja demokrati, kämpa mot korruption och bidra till att samhällen blir mer jämställda. I denna studie finner vi inget signifikant samband mellan den officiella policyn och faktisk allokering. En ”Generalized Least Square Random Effects” regression påvisar blott två signifikanta variabler; mottagarnas handelsvidd (öppenhet) och deras före detta koloniala (Brittiska) status. Istället för att belöna öppna ekonomier har svensk bistånd allokerats till mer stängda ekonomier som tenderar att vara mer korrupta. Trots att majoriteten av mottagarländerna är före detta kolonier är de Brittiska kolonierna favoriserade. Denna allokering tros vara ett resultat av biståndets historiska utveckling och praktiska omständigheter, så som språk etc…

Comments and Discussion : Toshiki Tamai

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<p>This study analyses which factors has driven the allocation of Swedish aid between 1975 and 2003. The results are then compared to the official policy. The general goal of Swedish aid is to “help to raise the living standard for the poor”, but there are more factors than income status that affect allocation.</p><p>Allocation of Swedish aid is affected by a set of criteria for the choice of recipient. The details and the goals of aid have changed over time even if the core has remained the same. According to the official policy, Swedish aid should be used to take responsibility across borders, to contribute to a greater common market and a peaceful development. It has been considered important that the recipients’ needs can be matched by Sweden’s capacity and that aid is developed from the recipients’ situation. The recipients’ absorption capacity is thus an important criterion. Summarized, Swedish aid should be used to promote democracy, fight corruption and contribute to more equal societies.</p><p>In this study we do not find any significant relation between the official policy and actual allocation. A Generalized Least Square regression with Random Effects points out only two significant variables, the recipients’ size of trade (openness) and their former (British) colonial status.</p><p>Instead of rewarding open economies, Swedish aid has been allocated to more closed economies which tend to be more corrupt. Although the majority of the recipient countries are former colonies, we find that former British colonies are favoured. This allocation is believed to be a result of the historical development of aid and practical circumstances such as language etc...</p> / <p>Denna studie analyserar vilka faktorer som har drivit Svenskt bistånd mellan 1975 och 2003. Resultaten jämförs sedan med officiell policy. Det allmänna målet med Svensk bistånd enligt officiell policy är att ”hjälpa till att höja levnadsstandarden för de fattiga”, men det finns fler faktorer än inkomstnivå som påverkar allokeringen.</p><p>Allokering av svenskt bistånd påverkas av bestämda "länderkriteria". Detaljerna och biståndets mål har förändrats över tiden även om kärnan har varit densamma. Enligt officiell policy så ska svenskt bistånd användas för att ta ansvar som sträcker sig över gränserna, för att bidra till en större gemensam marknad samt en fredlig utveckling. Det har ansetts vara viktigt att mottagarnas behov kan mötas av Sveriges kapacitet och att biståndet är sammansatt utifrån mottagarnas situation. Mottagarnas absorptionskapacitet är således det ett viktigt kriterium. Sammanfattningsvis ska svenskt bistånd främja demokrati, kämpa mot korruption och bidra till att samhällen blir mer jämställda.</p><p>I denna studie finner vi inget signifikant samband mellan den officiella policyn och faktisk allokering. En ”Generalized Least Square Random Effects” regression påvisar blott två signifikanta variabler; mottagarnas handelsvidd (öppenhet) och deras före detta koloniala (Brittiska) status.</p><p>Istället för att belöna öppna ekonomier har svensk bistånd allokerats till mer stängda ekonomier som tenderar att vara mer korrupta. Trots att majoriteten av mottagarländerna är före detta kolonier är de Brittiska kolonierna favoriserade. Denna allokering tros vara ett resultat av biståndets historiska utveckling och praktiska omständigheter, så som språk etc…</p>

No / This paper assesses the economic and political determinants of IMF and World Bank program loans to the Middle East and North Africa. First we assess what is already known about the geo-political influences on aid flows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the potential for this to operate via the IMF and World Bank. From this we conclude that there is scope for IMF and World Bank lending in the region to respond to the political interests of their major shareholders, particularly the United States. We support these arguments with both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the determinants of World Bank and IMF program lending to the region, focusing on both economic need in the MENA countries and the politics of donor interest before concluding.

No / This paper attempts to explain the factors that determine the geographical allocation of foreign aid. Its novelty is that it develops a rigorous theoretical model and conducts the corresponding empirical investigations based on a large panel dataset. We run regressions for different major donors (United States, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and multilateral organizations). with the explicit objective of establishing whether the United States, in light of its geopolitical hegemony, behaves differently from others. We find that all the donors respond to recipient need in their allocation of aid, but that the United States puts less emphasis on this than the other donors with the exception of Japan. We also find that the United States puts more emphasis on donor¿recipient linkages than do the other donors suggesting that the United States attaches greater importance to issues of donor interest, for example, geopolitical, commercial, and other links with specific recipients.

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La tesi si incentra sulle questioni legate alla distribuzione degli aiuti multilaterali allo sviluppo; in particolare due temi sono affrontati: la selettività degli aiuti e la qualità della governance. L’elaborato si basa sulla letteratura concernente l’efficacia e la distribuzione degli aiuti ed unisce quest’ultima alla letteratura sulla political economy delle organizzazioni internazionali e sulla good governance. Attraverso un’analisi econometrica si intende capire se le organizzazioni multilaterali hanno a cuore la qualità della governance del paese ricevente al momento dell’allocazione degli aiuti. Con un modello GMM-Diff che adopera sia strumenti interni che esterni, si evidenzia come l’interesse per la governance da parte delle istituzioni multilaterali non sia solo retorica, come invece appare da uno studio preliminare. Inoltre, attraverso l’analisi di un panel a tre dimensioni, la tesi monitora l’applicazione della selettività degli aiuti. Viene rigettata l’ipotesi di un aumento della selettività e si evidenziano margini per un miglioramento dell’efficacia allocativa degli aiuti. Le agenzie multilaterali devono cercare di distribuire gli aiuti con criteri diversi da quelli di natura geopolitica. / The thesis examines the allocation of multilateral aid flows with respect to two current issues of the development agenda: the selectivity of aid and the quality of governance. The dissertation brings together three strands of the relevant literature: firstly, the reference literature relating to aid effectiveness and aid allocation, which is then followed by the literature on good governance and, lastly, on the political economy of international organizations. We carry out an econometric study to understand whether international organizations care about the recipients’ performance on governance. With a GMM-Diff methodology using both internal and external instruments we show that the focus on governance by multilateral bodies is not only rhetoric, as it appears at first glance. Moreover, we explore how the selectivity of multilateral aid varies over time by employing a three-dimensional panel. Our analysis rejects the hypothesis of increasing selectivity and confirms that there is room to improve on the allocation of aid. Multilateral institutions need to strengthen their efforts to allocate aid on criteria other than political-strategic ones.

This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter examines empirically the relationshipbetween foreign aid and economic growth in the Least Developed Countries. Instrumentalvariables techniques are used to estimate the effect that economic growth has on foreign aidand to adjust for the reverse causal effect that growth has on aid when estimating the effect thataid has on growth. The second chapter examines the effects that fiscal expansions have on theunemployment rate. The chapter presents SVAR evidence for ten OECD countries and builds aDSGE model with a labor force participation choice and workers' heterogeneity to explain theempirical findings. The third chapter examines the effects that economic growth has on thesupport for extreme political platforms. The chapter provides a theoretical model in favor ofgrowth effects (as opposed to level effects) on the support for extreme political parties, andinvestigates empirically the relationship between growth and extremist votes for 16 OECDcountries.Esta tesis consiste en tres capítulos. El primer capítulo examina empíricamente la relación entrela ayuda exterior y crecimiento económico en los países menos adelantados. Técnicas devariables instrumentales se utilizan para estimar el efecto que el crecimiento económico tienesobre la ayuda exterior y para ajustar el efecto de causalidad inversa que el crecimiento tiene enla ayuda al estimar el efecto que la ayuda tiene sobre el crecimiento. El segundo capítuloanaliza los efectos que las expansiones fiscales tienen sobre la tasa de desempleo. El capítulopresenta pruebas SVAR para diez países de la OCDE y construye un modelo DSGE con unaparticipación en la fuerza de trabajo y heterogeneidad de los trabajadores para explicar losresultados empíricos. El tercer capítulo analiza los efectos que el crecimiento económico tieneen el apoyo a las plataformas políticas extremas. El capítulo ofrece un modelo teórico a favorde los efectos del crecimiento (en contraposición a los efectos de nivel) con el apoyo departidos políticos de extrema, e investiga empíricamente la relación entre el crecimiento devotos y extremistas para 16 países de la OCDE.