Foreign aid and ecological outcomes in poorer countries: an empirical analysis

Arvin, B. Mak; Lew, Byron

doi:10.1080/13504850601018312

Cited by 26 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Research on aid has also identified a number of other factors that may be correlated with aid allocations in developing countries, chief among them democratic conditions (for example, Arvin and Barillas, 2002;Knack, 2004) and the state of the environment (for example, Arvin et al, 2006;Arvin and Lew, 2009a). As is evident from this discussion, donors give aid for a variety of reasons that reflect both RN and DI.…”

Section: The Aid Literaturementioning

confidence: 90%

Does Happiness Affect the Bilateral Aid Flows Between Donor and Recipient Countries?

Arvin

Lew

2010

Eur J Dev Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The literature on the economics of well-being and happiness is currently growing at a remarkable rate. In separate studies, happiness has been linked to income, health, age, political and economic freedom, unemployment, inflation, self-employment, voluntary work, marriage, and even watching television. None of these studies have linked happiness to foreign aid disbursements. Using data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the World Database of Happiness, we construct an empirical model of aid, in which a host of donor interest and recipient need motives impact on the level of assistance a donor country gives. However, unlike other studies of aid, we concentrate on three factors in donor aid disbursement: the degree of happiness of the donor and the recipient; geographical proximity between the two countries; and competition between donors in providing aid. Using a number of different specifications, we test, in particular, the validity of the hypothesis that donor and recipient happiness are important determinants of levels of aid.La litte´rature sur l'e´conomie du bien-eˆtre s'accroıˆt a`une vitesse remarquable. Diffe´rentes e´tudes ont montre´le lien entre le bonheur et les revenus, la sante´, l'aˆge, la liberte´e´conomique et politique, le choˆmage, l'inflation, le travail inde´pendant, le be´ne´volat, le mariage et meˆme l'acte de regarder la te´le´vision. Aucune de ces e´tudes n'a fait le lien entre le bonheur et les de´penses d'aides a`l'e´tranger. À partir de donne´es provenant de l'OCDE, de la Banque Mondiale et de la Base de Donne´es Mondiales sur le Bonheur, nous de´veloppons un mode`le empirique d'aide dans lequel un grand nombre de motivations relatives aux inte´reˆts des pays donateurs et aux besoins des pays receveurs ont un impact sur le niveau d'aide fournie par le pays donateur. Cependant, contrairement a`d'autres e´tudes sur l'aide, nous nous concentrons sur trois facteurs influenc¸ant les de´penses d'aide re´alise´es par les pays donateurs: le degre´de bonheur du pays donateur et du pays be´ne´ficiaire, la proximiteǵ e´ographique des deux pays, la concurrence a`laquelle se livrent les donateurs pour fournir l'aide. En mobilisant un ensemble de spe´cifications, nous testons notamment la validite´de l'hypothe`se selon laquelle le bonheur du pays donateur et celui du be´ne´ficiaire sont d'importants de´terminants du niveau d'aide.

show abstract

Section: The Aid Literaturementioning

confidence: 90%

Does Happiness Affect the Bilateral Aid Flows Between Donor and Recipient Countries?

Arvin

Lew

2010

Eur J Dev Res

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The literature is inconclusive on this subject: While some suggest a negative relationship between aid and environmental protection, others argue that aid supports environmental protection. There are few empirical tests conducted on this subject, and the results are mixed (Arvin and Lew 2009). We suggest that this inconclusiveness arises when scholars ignore how the effect of aid is conditioned by alternative resource inflows from abroad.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Most studies have assessed the effects of environmental aid on specific environmental projects (Ross 1996), a specific country recipient (Gutner 2002), or even a specific donor agency (Dauvergne 2001). When it comes to an analysis of a broader set of countries, Arvin and Lew (2009) are the rare exception. They study the relationship between foreign aid and three ecological indicators in developing countries (CO 2 emissions, water pollution, and deforestation), and find that while foreign aid reduces CO 2 emissions, it increases water pollution and deforestation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…By enhancing economic development and increasing income in poorer nations, aid might improve the environment indirectly as well. If environmental protection can be viewed as a normal good, citizens' demand for environmental protection would increase as the economy grows (Arvin and Lew 2009). Some suggest that donors can explicitly dispense foreign aid to help bolster environmental protection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Foreign aid, economic globalization, and pollution

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores how trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) condition the effect of foreign aid on environmental protection in aid-recipient countries. We suggest that (1) environmental protection should be viewed as a public good and (2) all else equal, resource flows from abroad (via aid, trade, and FDI) influence governments' incentives to provide public goods. (3) Because these resources shape governments' incentives differently, their interactive effects should be examined. We begin with the assumption that developing country governments seek some optimal level of environmental protection, a level conditioned by their factor-intensive growth phase. We hypothesize that at low levels of export receipts or FDI inflows from the developed world, foreign aid is associated with superior environmental protection. This is because foreign aid, as an environmentally neutral addition to revenue, allows recipient governments to partially relax the trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. As levels of export receipts or FDI inflows from the developed world increase, however, the salutary effect of foreign aid will diminish and eventually be reversed. This is because foreign aid mitigates the recipient government's dependence on traders and investors in the developed world, and concomitantly reduces their pro-environmental policy leverage. Our analysis of 88 aid recipients, for the period 1980-2005, lends support to our argument.

show abstract

“…Examples of programs, financed by United Nations, criticized for their environmental damage are the dams in Sardar Sarovar (India) and Pak Mun (Thailand), the development scheme in Polonoroeste (Brazil) or the mines in Singrauli (India). Besides, Arvin and Lew () find that donors are sending mixed signals to recipient countries through their aid policies; for example, by rewarding them for the preservation of their forest but not for the reduction of their CO 2 emissions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Foreign Aid Linked to Infrastructure and Pollution Abatement

Barañano

Martín

2015

Rev International Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of foreign aid taking into account environmental quality. We develop a dynamic equilibrium model in which public investments in both infrastructure and pollution abatement can be co-financed using domestic resources and international aid. We consider untied aid, aid fully tied to either infrastructure or abatement and aid equally tied to both expenditures. We find that when the extent to which agents are affected by environmental problems is taken into account, then, regardless of the chances of substitution between factors, transfers linked to both infrastructure and pollution abatement may be the best welfare-enhancing alternative.

show abstract

Foreign aid and ecological outcomes in poorer countries: an empirical analysis

Cited by 26 publications

References 7 publications

Does Happiness Affect the Bilateral Aid Flows Between Donor and Recipient Countries?

Does Happiness Affect the Bilateral Aid Flows Between Donor and Recipient Countries?

Foreign aid, economic globalization, and pollution

The Impact of Foreign Aid Linked to Infrastructure and Pollution Abatement

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About