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African Leaders and the Geography of China’s Foreign Assistance
Axel Dreher, Andreas Fuchs, Roland Hodler, Bradley Parks, Paul A. Raschky and Michael J. Tierney

Published in: Journal of Development Economics 140:44-71, September 2019

Winner of the 2020 International Geneva Award of the Swiss Network for International Studies


Abstract
We investigate whether foreign aid from China is prone to political capture in aid-receiving countries. Specifically, we examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the birth regions of political leaders, controlling for indicators of need and various fixed effects. We collect data on 117 African leaders' birthplaces and geocode 1650 Chinese development projects across 2969 physical locations in Africa from 2000 to 2012. Our econometric results show that political leaders' birth regions receive substantially larger financial flows from China in the years when they hold power compared to what the same region receives at other times. We find evidence that these biases are a consequence of electoral competition: Chinese aid disproportionately benefits politically privileged regions in country-years when incumbents face upcoming elections and when electoral competitiveness is high. We observe no such pattern of favoritism in the spatial distribution of World Bank development projects.

Published paper
Supplementary material
Dataset
Working paper (October 2016)
Working paper (July 2015)
Working paper (November 2014)
Presentations at conferences and workshops
  • Erich-Schneider-Seminar, University of Kiel, Germany (01/2019)
  • Seminar at the University of Siegen, Germany (01/2019)
  • Séminaire DIAL, Université Paris-Dauphine, France (06/2018)
  • Macroeconomics, Rationality, and Institutions Workshop, Sapienza University of Rome (12/2017)
  • Development Economics Network Berlin (DENeB), Berlin, Germany (11/2017)
  • Workshop BNUBS (Lyon)-GATE (Beijing)-AWI (Heidelberg), Heidelberg University, Germany (07/2017)
  • Research Seminar of the Mercator School of Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany (01/2017)
  • EUDN Scientific Conference, University of Bonn, Germany (12/2016)
  • Research Seminar in Economics, University of Passau, Germany (10/2016)
  • Research Seminar in Economics, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia (10/2016)
  • Villanova School of Business Department of Economics Seminar Series, Villanova University, USA (09/2016)
  • Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, USA (09/2016)
  • China Economics Summer Institute, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China (08/2016)
  • Workshop on "Global Challenges,'' Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Milan, Italy (06/2016)
  • Development Economics Conference "Göttinger Schule,'' University of Goettingen, Germany (06/2016)
  • CSAE Conference 2016: Economic Development in Africa, University of Oxford, UK (03/2016)
  • Seminar of the European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES), Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium (01/2016)
  • Annual Conference on the Political Economy of International Organizations, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA (01/2016)
  • Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik, Münster, Germany (09/2015)
  • Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Stockholm, Sweden (09/2015)
  • Annual Congress of the European Economic Association (EEA), University of Mannheim, Germany (08/2015)
  • Silvaplana Workshop on Political Economy, Pontresina, Switzerland (07/2015)
  • Nordic Conference on Development Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (06/2015)
  • Annual Conference of the Verein für Socialpolitik Research Committee Development Economics, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Germany (06/2015)
  • Congress of the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), University of Basel, Switzerland (06/2015)
  • Seminarserie, Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway (05/2015)
  • International Economic Policy Research Seminar, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany (05/2015)
  • International Conference on Globalization and Development, University of Goettingen, Germany (05/2015)
  • General Economics Seminar, University of Gothenburg, Sweden (04/2015)
  • IMF Conference on Financing for Development, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland (04/2015)
  • Annual Meeting of the European Public Choice Society, Groningen, Netherlands (04/2015)
  • Research Seminar, Département d'économie politique, Université de Fribourg, Switzerland (03/2015)
  • Research Seminar, ESG Management School, Paris, France (03/2015)
  • Applied Economics and Econometrics Seminar, University of Mannheim, Germany (03/2015)
  • Research Seminar, Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, UK (02/2015)
  • Inaugural Sheffield Workshop in Political Economy, University of Sheffield, UK (02/2015)
  • International Economic Policy Research Seminar & AFRASO Lecture, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany (01/2015)
  • AWI Departmental Workshop, Heidelberg University, Germany (12/2014)
  • KOF-ETH-UZH Seminar in International Economic Policy, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (11/2014)
  • AidData Event "Where in the World is Chinese Development Finance?", OpenGov Hub, Washington, DC, USA (11/2014)
  • Annual Conference of the International Political Economy Society, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA (11/2014)
  • Seminar of the Department of Economics, University of Bergen, Norway (11/2014)
  • Faculty Seminar of the Department of Economics, NHH Bergen, Norway (11/2014)
  • Research Seminar, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, UK (10/2014)
  • Convening of the AidData Research Consortium, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, USA (01/2014)
 
In the media (newspapers, blogs)

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