The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-Country Empirics
The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-Country Empirics
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数字的无政府状态：援助、发展和跨国经验
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发表时间：
2003
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通讯作者：
D. Roodman
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作者：
D. Roodman
最近的文献中有许多关于外国援助如何影响经济增长的故事。所有这些故事都取决于涉及援助的二次项的跨国回归的统计显著性。其中的故事是，援助促进增长（平均而言）1）经济政策良好的国家; 2）政策良好且最近结束内战的国家; 3）所有国家，但收益递减; 4）热带以外的国家; 5）经济环境困难的国家，其特点是贸易条件下降或波动，自然灾害或人口少;或6）在出口价格受到负面冲击的国家增加援助。初步结果的多样性表明，许多结果是脆弱的。Easterly et al.（2004）发现援助政策的故事（伯恩赛德和Dollar，2000）在年份和国家数据集扩大的情况下是脆弱的。本研究通过应用更多的测试和更多的研究来扩展这种分析。每个测试只涉及改变回归的一个方面。所有19个测试都是从最小任意性的变化源中导出的。其中12项来自研究之间的规格差异，Leamer（1983）称之为“奇思妙想”。其中三个来自对一项研究中一个变量的定义是否适当的怀疑。其余四个来自时间的流逝，这使得样本扩展。这种设计允许在测试结果中检查“异想天开”的作用，同时最大限度地减少测试本身中的“异想天开”。在审查的故事中，援助政策的联系证明是最弱的，而援助热带地区的联系是最强大的。
Recent literature contains many stories of how foreign aid affects economic growth. All the stories hinge on the statistical significance in cross-country regressions of a quadratic term involving aid. Among the stories are that aid raises growth (on average) 1) in countries where economic policies are good; 2) in countries where policies are good and a civil war recently ended; 3) in all countries, but with diminishing returns; 4) in countries outside the tropics; 5) in countries with difficult economic environments, characterized by declining or volatile terms of trade, natural disasters, or low population; or 6) when aid increases in countries experiencing negative export price shocks. The diversity of results prima facie suggests that many are fragile. Easterly et al. (2004) find the aid-policy story (Burnside and Dollar, 2000) to be fragile in the face of an expansion of the data set in years and countries. The present study expands that analysis by applying more tests, and to more studies. Each test involves altering just one aspect of the regressions. All 19 tests are derived from sources of variation that are minimally arbitrary. Twelve derive from specification differences between studies, what Leamer (1983) calls “whimsy.” Three derive from doubts about the appropriateness of the definition of one variable in one study. The remaining four derive from the passage of time, which allows sample expansion. This design allows an examination of the role of “whimsy” in the results that are tested while minimizing “whimsy” in the testing itself. Among the stories examined, the aid-policy link proves weakest, while the aid-tropics link is most robust.