Foreign aid from China is often characterized as "rogue aid" that is guided by selfish interests alone. We collect data on Chinese project aid, food aid, medical staff and total aid money to ...developing countries, covering the 1956-2006 period, to empirically test to what extent self-interests shape China's aid allocation. While political considerations shape China's allocation of aid, China does not pay substantially more attention to politics compared to Western donors. What is more, China's aid allocation seems to be widely independent of recipients' endowment with natural resources and institutional characteristics. Overall, denoting Chinese aid as "rogue aid" seems unjustified. L'aide étrangère de la Chine est souvent caractérisée comme une « aide canaille » guidée par les seuls intérêts du donneur. On a collecté des données sur l'aide de la Chine pour des projets, de la nourriture, du personnel médical, ainsi que l'aide monétaire totale aux pays en développement pour la période 1956-2006, afin de tester empiriquement jusqu'à quel point les intérêts égoïstes de la Chine ont conformé l'aide de la Chine. Bien que des considérations politiques conforment l'allocation de l'aide de la Chine, la Chine ne porte pas une attention substantiellement plus grande aux considérations politiques que les donateurs de l'Ouest. De plus, l'allocation de l'aide de la Chine semble grandement indépendante de la dotation en facteurs ou des caractéristiques institutionnelles des pays récipiendaires. En gros, caractériser l'aide de la Chine comme « aide canaille » semble injustifié.
Data published by the US Congressional Budget Office show that over the last fifty years expenditures for infrastructure’s operations and maintenance (O&M) have roughly equalled those for new ...capital. We use this data set to investigate the productive impact of public infrastructure spending, taking into account its composition for each government level. We find that a rise (fall) in infrastructure expenditures by states and localities (the federal government) would enhance future productivity growth and that the rise in state and local spending should mainly come from additional O&M outlays in the transport sector.
Using German data over the period 1956–2006, this study provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of factors driving aggregate mortality rates over time. It differs from previous contributions in ...this field by simultaneously considering an extensive set of macroeconomic, socioeconomic, and ecological factors as explanatory variables. Our regression analysis shows that sex- and age-specific mortality rates vary substantially in their response to external factors. Strongest associations are found with changes in real GDP, flu epidemics, and the two lifestyle variables—alcohol and cigarette consumption—in both univariate and multivariate setups. Further analysis indicates that these effects are primarily contemporary, whereas other indicators, such as weather conditions, exert lagged effects. We derive optimal multivariate models for every age group that provide a good fit to the observed variation in annual mortality rates, and thereby confirm the relevance of the identified factors.
