Better Policies from Policy-Selective Aid?

Abstract

This paper shows that the increased policy-selectivity of aid allocations observed in recent years provides recipient countries an incentive to improve policies. The paper estimates that a change in the World Banks Country Policy and Institutional Assessment policy index from 1.5 to 2 for a recipient is associated with an increase of about 13 percent in aid. The analysis also finds a modest but statistically significant positive relationship between the share of policy-selective aid in the global aid budget and policy, suggesting that policy-selective aid improves policies. This effect is properly identified, as the share of policy-selective aid in the global aid budget is exogenous to recipient country policy choices. Furthermore, the paper provides a game theoretic model that establishes the link between the policy-selectivity of the global budget and better recipient country policies in equilibrium.