Can Aid Buy Foreign Public Support? Evidence from Chinese Development Finance

IF 2 3区经济学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Economic Development and Cultural Change Pub Date : 2024-01-22 DOI:10.1086/729539

L. Wellner, A. Dreher, A. Fuchs, Bradley C. Parks, Austin Strange

{"title":"Can Aid Buy Foreign Public Support? Evidence from Chinese Development Finance","authors":"L. Wellner, A. Dreher, A. Fuchs, Bradley C. Parks, Austin Strange","doi":"10.1086/729539","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run. Abstract: Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run.","PeriodicalId":48055,"journal":{"name":"Economic Development and Cultural Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"11","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economic Development and Cultural Change","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1086/729539","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 11

Abstract

Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run. Abstract: Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data from the Gallup World Poll for 126 countries over the 2006–2017 period and identify causal effects with (i) an event-study model that includes high-dimensional fixed effects, and (ii) instrumental-variables regressions that rely on exogenous variation in the supply of Chinese government financing over time. Our results are nuanced and depend on whether we focus on subnational jurisdictions, countries, or groupings of countries. On average, we estimate that the completion of one additional development project in a recipient country increases public support for the Chinese government by more than 3 percentage points in the short run and 0.2 percentage points in the longer run.

查看原文本刊更多论文

援助能否换来外国公众的支持？中国发展融资的证据

双边援助国利用对外援助追求软实力。我们利用有关中国发展项目的精确承诺、实施和完成日期的新数据集，检验了援助在实现这一目标方面的有效性。我们使用盖洛普世界民意调查（Gallup World Poll）2006-2017 年间 126 个国家的数据，并通过（i）包含高维固定效应的事件研究模型，以及（ii）依赖于中国政府融资供应随时间变化的外生变化的工具变量回归，来识别因果效应。我们的研究结果有细微差别，取决于我们关注的是次国家辖区、国家还是国家集团。平均而言，我们估计在受援国完成一个额外的发展项目会在短期内将公众对中国政府的支持率提高 3 个百分点以上，在长期内提高 0.2 个百分点。摘要：双边援助国利用对外援助追求软实力。我们利用有关中国发展项目的精确承诺、实施和完成日期的新数据集来检验援助在实现这一目标方面的有效性。我们使用盖洛普世界民意调查（Gallup World Poll）2006-2017 年间 126 个国家的数据，并通过（i）包含高维固定效应的事件研究模型，以及（ii）依赖于中国政府融资供应随时间变化的外生变化的工具变量回归，来识别因果效应。我们的研究结果有细微差别，取决于我们关注的是次国家辖区、国家还是国家集团。平均而言，我们估计在一个受援国完成一个额外的发展项目会在短期内将公众对中国政府的支持率提高 3 个百分点以上，在长期内提高 0.2 个百分点。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Economic Development and Cultural Change Multiple-

CiteScore

3.70

自引率

5.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Economic Development and Cultural Change (EDCC) is an economic journal publishing studies that use modern theoretical and empirical approaches to examine both the determinants and the effects of various dimensions of economic development and cultural change. EDCC’s focus is on empirical papers with analytic underpinnings, concentrating on micro-level evidence, that use appropriate data to test theoretical models and explore policy impacts related to a broad range of topics relevant to economic development.