Journal of International Development最新文献

Does the presence of autocratic donors alter citizens' perceptions of democracy? The paper argues that the presence of autocratic donors can alter citizens' views of donors' influence and support for democracy. The study analyses, on the donor side Chinese development assistance from AidData, one of the largest autocratic donors worldwide and, on the recipient side, Serbia—a middle-income country where both Western and non-traditional donors are heavily involved with aid projects. The findings suggest that in the presence of higher levels of aid from autocratic donors, citizens who uphold a very positive view of donors' political influence are the least likely to support democracy. The article proposes two main mechanisms: the attribution processes of aid and the instrumentalization of foreign aid by elites. The analysis employs a mixed-method approach, combining mixed-ordered probit regression of aid and municipal-level survey data with insights from 16 interviews with experts on Serbia who have direct experience with aid initiatives or research. The study contributes to advancing our understanding of the impact of autocratic donors on citizens' support for democracy.

This study investigates the impact of social capital (SC) on household resilience and well-being in Togo, considering gender and location differences. Using data from the 2017 Regional Integrated Survey on Employment and the Informal Sector, three complementary econometric methods were applied, including propensity score matching, endogenous switching regression, and instrumental variable quantile regressions. The results show that access to SC improves household well-being by strengthening resilience, although this effect varies by gender and location. SC benefits men in rural areas but has less impact on women. Public policies should promote civic engagement to maximize the positive effects of SC.

This study explores the moderating role of the business environment in the relationship between top manager gender and firm performance, using firm-level data from 29 African countries. Controlling for endogeneity and country fixed effects, we find that female-managed firms generally underperform male-managed firms, except among large firms where female managers excel. The performance gap is exacerbated by a weak business environment, highlighting the need for reforms to close the managerial gender gap in Africa. Strengthening the business environment is essential for improving female-led firm performance and by extension promoting gender equality in African business leadership.

This paper examines the effect of China's aid on the position upgrading of recipient countries in the global value chains (GVCs). It is found that China's aid can significantly promote the position upgrading of recipient countries in the GVCs. Mechanism tests have shown that China's aid has ultimately contributed to upgrading the recipient countries' position in the GVC through the three channels of upgrading their technological level, improving their infrastructure, and promoting their level of industrialization. The findings of this paper contribute to promoting research on the effectiveness of foreign aid in the development of recipient countries.

Rural labour out-migration has become a major contributor to off-farm income through remittances and plays a crucial role in supporting the livelihoods of rural households in developing economies. However, research on the simultaneous on-farm and off-farm impacts of labour migration is still lacking. This study assesses the impacts of household labour migration on wheat productivity, labour and total costs, profitability and off-farm income among smallholder wheat growers in Nepal. We use endogenous switching regression and two-stage least squares regression models to control for potential endogeneity. The findings reveal that labour migration boosts off-farm income due to remittances but negatively affects wheat productivity and profitability due to labour shortages. In addition, heterogeneous effects are observed, with large farms, cooperative membership, use of farm mechanization and non-marginalized castes recording positive impacts. The study suggests that social institutions, such as cooperatives, and farm mechanization can create synergies between labour migration and agricultural productivity in Nepal.

This study examines the impact of corruption on environmental quality, covering aspects such as climate change, environmental health, air quality, sanitation and drinking water, heavy metals, and waste management across 163 countries from 2005 to 2020. We utilize a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model for panel data to analyse the spatial dependencies among these environmental quality indicators. Our findings highlight several key insights. First, there are spatial spillover effects in regional environmental quality, particularly concerning climate change, air quality, and waste management. Second, a country's environmental quality is influenced not only by its own corruption control measures but also by those of its neighbouring countries. Finally, our analysis identifies variations across different income groups: while control of corruption significantly and positively impacts environmental quality in high-income and medium-income countries, its effect is positive but statistically insignificant in low-income countries. These results emphasize the need for tailored environmental policies for each income group and environmental aspect.

What explains aid allocation–donor interests or recipient needs? This research debate has generated a number of studies, which generally conclude that both motivations matter. One limitation of this literature is that donor governments are conceptualized as unitary actors with coherent preferences. In this study, we relax this assumption and focus on the interests and interactions of bureaucratic agencies within a donor government. We argue that these agencies compete as they seek to control a larger share of the foreign aid budget because foreign aid is a valuable policy instrument for bureaucratic agencies. This competition results in emulation: the agency that leads the government's development cooperation policy emulates other agencies' provision of domestic benefits, while the lead agency's competitors mimic its aid allocation patterns. We test our expectations using data on bilateral aid disbursed by four bureaucratic agencies of the South Korean government and find evidence of both types of emulation strategies. Our results point to the role played by a mostly overlooked group of domestic-level actors in donor countries and the importance of bureaucratic politics and competition.

Impact investing plays a critical role in financing enterprises that have the potential to tackle social problems through business means, particularly in developing countries. However, concerns about over-indebtedness of microfinance institutions have fueled questions regarding potential trade-offs between financial and social efficiency of impact investing and demand further investigation. Using the case of Cambodia's microfinance industry, this paper first examines whether the microfinance industry outperforms from the perspective of both social and financial returns. In addition, as impact investments by Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) form the backbone of the microfinance sector, a related objective is to investigate whether social or financial returns are more important for DFIs when making impact investment decisions. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Tobit regression, our research finds that while Cambodian MFIs excel in financial efficiency, social efficiency is considerably lower. The analysis also finds that DFIs' investments are predominantly driven by financial efficiency rather than an approach that considers both social and financial outcomes. Our analysis suggests the need for enhanced impact measurement frameworks and a reevaluation of DFIs impact investing strategies to ensure a more equitable focus on both financial and social impacts.