Aid Is Good for the Poor

Hirano, Yumeka ; Otsubo, Shigeru

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURE;    AID ALLOCATION;    AVERAGE GROWTH;    AVERAGE GROWTH RATE;    AVERAGE INCOME;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6998
RP-ID  :  WPS6998

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Aid is good for the poor. This paperuses detailed aid data spanning 60 developing countries overthe past two decades to show that social aid significantlyand directly benefits the poorest in society, while economicaid increases the income of the poor through growth. Thisnew and unequivocal finding distinguishes the current studyfrom past studies that only utilized aggregate aid data andreturned ambiguous results. The paper also confirms thatnone of the elements of globalization (trade, foreign directinvestment, remittances), policies (government expenditure,inflation management), institutional quality, nor otherplausibly pro-poor factors have systematic effects on thepoor or any other income group, beyond their effects onaverage incomes. The paper finds that trade and foreigndirect investment tend to benefit the richest segments ofsociety more than other income groups. Therefore, thepresented evidence suggests that aid can play a crucial rolein enabling the poor to benefit more from globalization.These discoveries underscore the need to assist developingcountries to find the mix of economic and social aid thatjointly promotes the participation of the poor in thedevelopment process under globalization. In this manner, aidcan make greater strides in spurring development.