7 research outputs found
Mozambique returns to war, as opposition claims electoral âfraudâ
Journalists and statisticians are trying to determine if Mozambique opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama was cheated out of the presidency, or if he is just a bad loser, write Joseph Hanlon and Johan Ahlback
An experiment on foreign aid and public spending changed our thinking on aid effectiveness
Foreign aid is often accused of promoting corruption and hurting development by encouraging recipient governments to reallocate budgets away from needed areas. A recent experiment in Malawi to test whether aid crowds out public spending found each project crowds out about 22%. Contrary to the claims of aid critics, this research finds no evidence that foreign aid undermines spending on the neediest or contributes to political patronage. Instead, politicians often claim to be motivated by fairness and equity
The Political and Economic Targeting of Development Aid: A Field Experiment among Elected Officials in Malawi
How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions: evidence from a field experiment in Malawi
Does foreign aid shift public spending? Many worry that aid will be âfungibleâ in the sense that govern- ments reallocate public funds in response to aid. If so, this could undermine development, increase the poorestâs dependency on donors, and free resources for patronage. Yet, there is little agreement about the scale or consequences of such effects. We conducted an experiment with 460 elected politicians in Malawi. We provided information about foreign aid projects in local schools to these politicians. After- wards, politicians made real decisions about which schools to target with development goods. Politicians who received the aid information treatment were 18% less likely to target schools with existing aid. These effects increase to 22-29% when the information was plausibly novel. We find little evidence that aid information heightens targeting of political supporters or family members, or dampens support to the neediest. Instead the evidence indicates politicians allocate the development goods in line with equity concerns