Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/127352 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper Series No. 532
Publisher: 
University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
It is puzzling that India, which has a large domestic constituency of people suffering from underdevelopment, chronic poverty and mal-governance, is emerging as an important aid donor. With the intension of understanding why poor countries provide foreign aid, this article is the first to econometrically analyze India’s aid allocation decisions. First, we utilize cross-sectional data on aid commitments by the Ministry of External Affairs to 125 developing countries, obtained in US dollars from AidData for the 2008-2010 period. Second, we compare India’s aid allocation with that of other donors. Our findings show that India’s aid allocation is partially in line with our expectations of the behavior of a "needy" donor. Commercial and political self-interests dominate India’s aid allocation. We find the importance of political interests to be significantly larger for India than for all donors of the Development Assistance Committee. Moreover, we find that countries which are closer geographically are favored, and that countries at a similar developmental stage are more likely to enter India’s aid program.
JEL: 
F35
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
3.58 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.