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Aid and Liberty in West Africa

Democracy and foreign assistance in West Africa: A search for the correlation between aid and liberty (Preliminary Findings) Cameron Weber Omer Siddique New School for Social Research. Aid and Liberty in West Africa.

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Aid and Liberty in West Africa

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  1. Democracy and foreign assistance in West Africa: A search for the correlation between aid and liberty(Preliminary Findings)Cameron WeberOmer SiddiqueNew School for Social Research

  2. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Purpose of research is to explore aid as something external to internal political economy of recipient nation.

  3. Aid and Liberty in West Africa “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest level of barbarism, but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.” Adam Smith

  4. Aid and Liberty in West Africa 8 countries under study share common monetary policy in West Africa Monetary Union (WAMU) administered by BCEAO central bank: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo

  5. Aid and Liberty in West Africa * Aid defined as bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Concessional Multilateral Lending (e.g. IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank) * Data from World Bank Development Indicators, Freedom House (we are using average of political rights and civil liberties indicators) and African Elections Database * Constant Year 2000 US Dollars * 30 Year Period 1975-2005 (15 years of Cold War and 15 years post-Cold War)

  6. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  7. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  8. Aid and Liberty in West Africa We look at three proxies for liberty: • Political rights and civil liberties • Freely-Elected Leadership • Fiscal Accountability

  9. Note Guinea-Bissau as outlier with aid > 100%

  10. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  11. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Regression analysis shows that for every 1% increase in aid, Freedom House indicator improves 0.03. For example if aid per person increases $1 indicator improves from 5 to 4.97. Results show statistical significance (t-stat is 10.44 and R-Squared is .75)

  12. Aid and Liberty in West Africa It should be noted that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Bourguigon and Sunberg (2007), “The empirical literature on aid effectiveness has yielded unclear and ambiguous results. This is not surprising given the heterogeneity of aid motives, the limitations of the tools of analysis, and the complex causality chain linking external aid to final outcomes.” Bourguignon, F. and Sunberg, M. 2007. “Aid Effectiveness – Opening the Black Box.” American Economic Review; Papers and Proceedings, 97(2): 316 – 321.

  13. Aid and Liberty in West Africa For reductio ad absurdum example of statistical meaning without economic meaning, would a 100% increase in aid then imply the movement of Freedom House index from 5 to 2 ? See D. McCloskey The Rhetoric of Economics 1998 on statistical v. economic significance.

  14. Aid and Liberty in West Africa: Democratic Leadership

  15. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  16. With Guinea-Bissau outlier of aid > 100% of GDP

  17. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Probit regression shows $1 increase in aid increase likelihood of freely-elected leadership by 3.8% Statistically significant with z-stat equal to 5.79 and pseudo R-Squared .1326 (note control variables not used in this regression).

  18. Aid and Liberty in West Africa: Fiscal Accountability

  19. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  20. Regression shows that when aid per person increases by 1% of GDP public debt per person increases 0.4%.

  21. Aid and Liberty in West Africa

  22. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Conclusions Inconclusive on relationship between aid and civil and political rights due to causation question, however rights have increased historically. Public debt and aid move together. Aid and debt have decreased since the end of the Cold War. Freely-elected leadership has improved since the end of the Cold War, with Cote d’Ivoire being the exception. West Africa WAMU countries received $11 billion in aid from 1975 to 2005 and public debt per person has increased more than 600% as a percentage of the economy since 1975, while average per person income has decreased from $1247 in 1975 to $1101 in 2005.

  23. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Econometrics Methodology: Liberty = f(Aid; Conditional Variables) Conditional Variables, investment as % of GDP, general government consumption as % of GDP, and trade (exports + imports) as % of GDP. As investment increases an economy is supposed to grow and liberty increases as individual capacities increase. As government consumption increases government may need to seek external borrowing other than aid. As trade increases economy is supposed to grow and thus capacities (e.g. liberties) increase. However, if imports are military or other non-productive government spending then increased trade does not imply increased liberty.

  24. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Aid is statistically significant in explaining liberty index. The negative sign implies that as aid increases liberty index increases Though it is ‘economically’ insignificant coefficients in all the equations is very low Control variables are statistically insignificant except for trade which is marginally significant (at 10% significance level) We have added dummy for Guinea-Bissau because Aid (% of GDP) is very high in some years. The dummy is statistically significant. Adjusted R-Squared also increases due to inclusion of dummy. The squared term of aid is also statistically significant and its coefficient is positive, implies decreasing and then negative returns This together with negative sign on linear term of aid implies that at very high levels of aid liberty may decline

  25. Aid and Liberty in West Africa Debt = f(Aid; Conditional Variables) Conditional variables are the same as in previous analysis The impact of these variables might be inconclusive An increase in investment may or may not lead to decrease in debt. If investment is financed by external resources, debt might increase and it may take time for this investment to realize in economic growth and hence reduction in debt High government consumption might lead to increase in debt Trade, if its major portion is imports, might lead to an increase in debt An increase in aid, however, is supposed to lead in increase in debt burden

  26. Aid and Liberty in West Africa An increase in aid lead to increase in debt. The variable is highly significant. 1% increase in aid lead to 0.40% increase in debt, which seems to be economically significant. The coefficient decreases when dummy for Guinea-Bissau is included. Increase in government consumption leads to an increase in debt though coefficient decrease when the dummy variable is included. Trade’s impact on debt without dummy variable is negative and marginally statistically significant and with dummy variable is positive but insignificant.

  27. Democracy and foreign assistance in West Africa: A search for the correlation between aid and liberty(Preliminary Findings) Thank you. Comments and suggestions welcome to Cameron Weber, corresponding author. weberc49@newschool.edu or cameron_weber@hotmail.com

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