Speaker
Description
This study investigates the potential favoritism in Chinese development aid allocation towards the home countries of African Union (AU) Chairpersons during their tenure. The AU’s rotational presidency model provides a unique opportunity to test whether Chinese aid is disproportionately directed to the Chairperson’s home country during their one-year term. Estimating fixed effects Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) models for 54 countries in the 2002-2017 period, we find a significant increase in Chinese aid to the Chairperson’s home country during their tenure, particularly in the economic sector. No similar pattern of favoritism is observed for aid from the World Bank and traditional Western bilateral donors. This study contributes to the literature on foreign aid by focusing on China’s strategic interactions with the AU, highlighting a distinct approach to aid allocation that favors influential positions within less Western-dominated international organizations.
| Keyword | Political Economy |
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