Aid allocation and political ideology in Latin America and the Caribbean.

摘要

This paper examines the factors affecting the allocation of foreign aid from bilateral and multilateral donors to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) during the 2000s, with a particular emphasis on political ideology. An econometrics model that predicts the amount of aid that a country receives, based on indicators of "donor interest," "recipient need," and "good governance," was developed by the author. This paper finds that leftist governments receive fewer disbursements than those in the center and the right. These results apply for both bilateral and multilateral donors and are particularly relevant, given the region's so-called "swing to the left" during the decade.;This paper also finds that the allocation of aggregate aid in LAC is driven by "donor interest" and "good governance." If bilateral and multilateral disbursements are analyzed separately, "recipient need" also plays a role in the allocation process. "Donor interest" has a bigger weight in the determination of bilateral aid than "recipient need" and "good governance," while "recipient need" is more important for multilateral aid. Less populous countries receive more aid per capita than more populous ones and multilateral aid does not necessarily flow to the countries that need it the most.