US politics and World Bank IDA-lending

TY - JOUR

T1 - US politics and World Bank IDA-lending

AU - Andersen, Thomas Barnebeck

AU - Hansen, Henrik

AU - Markussen, Thomas

N1 - JEL Classification: F34, F35, 019

PY - 2006

Y1 - 2006

N2 - This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous studies we find that the US exerted a significant influence on IDA lending during the period 1993-2000. We demonstrate that the influence was both statistically as well as economically significant. Finally, we demonstrate that our result is robust with respect to the omission of the IDA Country Performance Rating index

AB - This paper studies the role of US political factors in the allocation of World Bank concessional lending, where US political interests are proxied by voting similarity in the United Nations General Assembly on issues identified as important by the US Department of State. In contrast to previous studies we find that the US exerted a significant influence on IDA lending during the period 1993-2000. We demonstrate that the influence was both statistically as well as economically significant. Finally, we demonstrate that our result is robust with respect to the omission of the IDA Country Performance Rating index

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - aid

KW - World Bank

U2 - 10.1080/00220380600741946

DO - 10.1080/00220380600741946

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0022-0388

VL - 42

SP - 772

EP - 794

JO - Journal of Development Studies

JF - Journal of Development Studies

IS - 5

ER -