The costs of favoritism

• Titel: The costs of favoritism
• Titelzusatz: is politically-driven aid less effective?
• Mitwirkende: Dreher, Axel
• Verf.angabe: Axel Dreher ...
• Verlagsort: Göttingen
• Verlag: [Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth]
• Jahr: 2010
• Umfang: 43 S.
• Illustrationen: graph. Darst.
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Discussion papers / Courant Research Centre "Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing and Transition Countries" ; 26
• ComputerInfo: Systemvoraussetzung: Acrobat Reader.
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: World Bank
• Sach-SW: Aid Effectiveness
• Sach-SW: Political Influence
• Sach-SW: United Nations Security Council
• Form-SW: Arbeitspapier
• Form-SW: Graue Literatur
• K10plus-PPN: 782021662

Abstract

As is now well documented, aid is given for both political as well as economic reasons. The conventional wisdom is that politically-motivated aid is less effective in promoting developmental objectives. We examine the ex-post performance ratings of World Bank projects and generally find that projects that are potentially politically motivated - such as those granted to governments holding a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council or an Executive Directorship at the World Bank - are no more likely, on average, to get a negative quality rating than other projects. When aid is given to Security Council members with higher short-term debt, however, a negative quality rating is more likely. So we find evidence that World Bank project quality suffers as a consequence of political influence only when the recipient country is economically vulnerable in the first place.