1

TheDeterminantsofFoodAidProvisionstoAfricaandthe

DevelopingWorld∗

By

NathanNunn(HarvardUniversity)andNancyQian(YaleUniversity)

Abstract

Weexaminethesupply‐sideanddemand‐sidedeterminantsofglobalbilateralfood

aidshipmentsbetween1971and2008.First,wefindthatdomesticfoodproduction

indevelopingcountries isnegativelycorrelatedwithsubsequentfoodaidreceipts,

suggesting that food aid receipt is partly driven by local food shortages.

Interestingly, food aid from some of the largest donors is the least responsive to

production shocks in recipient countries. Second, we show that U.S. food aid is

partlydrivenbydomesticproductionsurpluses,whereasformercolonialtiesarean

important determinant for European countries. Third, amongst recipients, former

colonial ties are especially important for African countries. Finally, aid flows to

∗WegratefullyacknowledgefundingfromtheNBERAfricaProject.WethankEvaNg,SayonDebandKatherineWilsonforvaluableresearchassistance.

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countries with former colonial ties are less responsive to recipient production,

especiallyforAfricancountries.

I.Introduction

Food aid has been one of themost important policies for economic development

sinceWorldWarII.During itspeak in1965, foodaidaccountedfor22%ofallaid

given to developing countries. It ismeant to alleviate hunger by feeding the local

population. Throughmonetization, it is alsomeant to help fund projects that the

recipient governments deem helpful for general economic development. The

effectivenessof foodaidhasbeenthesubjectof intensedebate inrecentyears. In

theacademic realm, existing studies that empirically estimate the impactsof food

aid have found mixed results. Some have found that food aid alleviates hunger

(Levinsohn and McMillan, 2007; Quisumbing, 2003; Yamano, Alderman and

Christiaensen,2005),andbydoingsocanbeaneffectivepolicyforreducingconflict

(e.g.,Bardhan,1997).Criticshaveobservedthatfoodaidisnotalwaystargetedor

delivered to the most needy. Some have even argued that it could have the

unintended and perverse effect of making the populations in recipient countries

worse off. For example, there are many accounts of how food aid can increase

conflict(Knack,2001).Acompanionstudytothispaperconfirmsthisfearandfinds

apositiverelationshipbetweenfoodaidontheincidenceofconflict(NunnandQian,

2011).

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This paper addresses the important issue of food aid by focusing on the

determinants(ratherthantheconsequences)offoodaidandthedifferentpatterns

of food aid across donors and recipients. We are particularly interested in the

differences forAfricancountriesas theyarearguably themostrelianton foodaid

today.

Theanalysisbeginsbyfirstprovidingastatisticaloverviewoffoodaidshipmentsto

Africaandtherestofthedevelopingworld.Thenweexamineanumberofspecific

determinantsofannualbilateralshipmentsofcerealaidbetween1971and2008.

We find that an important determinant of food aid is the recipient country’s

domesticproductionoffoodinthepreviousyears.Lessfoodproductioninperiodt

is correlated with increased food aid received in the next two years. This

relationshipismuchstrongerforAfricanrecipientsthanfornon‐Africanrecipients.

Inotherwords,foodaidgiventoAfricaappearsmuchmoreresponsivetorecipient

needthanfoodaidgiventotherestofthedevelopingworld.

For each donor country, we then estimate the responsiveness of its food aid

shipments to adverse production shocks in receiving countries. We find strong

evidencethat foodaid frommanyof the largestcerealproducingcountries,which

arealsosomeofthelargestdonors–e.g.,Canada,USA,IndiaandChina–istheleast

responsivetovariationinrecipientcerealproduction.

Wethenturnto factors inthedonorcountriesthataffect foodaidshipments. We

focusontwodonorcountryfactors:domesticcerealproductionandformercolonial

ties.WeshowthatU.S.productionofcereals–wheatinparticular–isanimportant

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determinantof foodaid flows. If theU.S. experiencesapositiveproduction shock,

theamountof foodaidgiven increases in thesubsequent twoyears. Interestingly,

thecorrelationbetweendonordomesticproductionandaidflowsseemsuniqueto

theUnitedStates.

For Old World donors, we examine another potential determinant of food aid :

formercolonial ties.WefindthatonlyAfricancountriesaremore likelytoreceive

morefoodaidfromformercolonialmasters,whereasallcountriesaremorelikely

toreceivefoodaidfromcountriesthatwerecolonizedbythesamecolonizer.Thisis

interesting because it suggests that foreign countries, especially former colonial

masters, are a more important source of food aid for the economies of African

countries.Thegreaterimportanceofthecolonizer‐colonyrelationshipforfoodaid

flows toAfricamaybe explainedby the fact thatAfrican countriesmore recently

gainedindependencerelativetocountriesinLatinAmericaandAsia.

Our last results examine the interaction between colonial history and the

responsiveness of donors to recipient need, as measured by recipient cereal

production.We find that for all countrieswhen the recipient and donor have the

sameformercolonizer,foodaidshipmentsarelessresponsivetorecipientneed.For

African countries this is also true when the donor is the former colonizer. This

suggeststhatalthoughcolonialtiesincreasethetotalamountofaidflowsbetween

twocountries,theincreasedflowsappeartobemuchlessresponsivetoneed.These

flowsarenotnecessarilygoingtothelocationsthatneeditmost.Thisisinteresting

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and suggests that food aid from former colonialmasters are intended for general

developmentorotherobjectivesratherthanforthealleviationofacutehunger.

This paper is organized as follows. In the following section, to helpmotivate our

investigationofthedeterminantsoffoodaid,wereviewtheexistingevidenceonthe

consequences of food aid. Section III provides a statistical overview of food aid

flowstoalldevelopingcountries.InSectionIV,wefocusonthedeterminantsoffood

aid to Africa and the rest of the world. Finally, we offer concluding remarks in

SectionV.

II.ConsequencesofFoodAidinAfricaandtheRestoftheWorld

Before presenting our analysis on the determinants of food aid shipments to

developingcountries,wefirstprovideabriefoverviewofthepotentialbenefitsand

costs to the receiving countries. Amore detailed description is provided inNunn

andQian(2011).

Themost prominent problems associatedwith food aid canbedivided into three

categories. The first problem is one that faces all foreign aid. Food aid can be a

significant source of revenues for some recipient countries. It is also entirely

fungible and can be monetized and spent at the discretion of the recipient

government.Thisincreaseinresourcescouldincreasepoliticalcompetition,which

canoftenleadtoincreasedconflictswithintherecipientcountries.

Second,acloselyrelatedproblemisthatgovernmentsofpoorcountriesoftenhave

littlepoliticalincentivetodelivertheseadditionalresourcesappropriately,i.e.tothe

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mostneedy.Forexample,inhisstudyoffoodaidinRwandaduringtheearly1990s,

PeterUvin(1998)findsthataidwasmisusedbythegovernmentandallocatedtoa

few elites, generating discontent and conflict. He writes: “The development

enterprise directly and actively contributes to inequality and humiliation. The

material advantages accorded to a small group of people… living in Rwanda

contributetogreatereconomicinequalityandthedevaluationoflifeofthemajority”

(Uvin,1998,p.142).Thisisjustoneofmanyexamplesthatonecomesacrossinthe

accountsofaidworkers.Anotherexample is inZimbabwe,where thegovernment

would only provide food aid to known political supporters (Thurow and Kilman,

2009).Or,inSomalia,werefoodaidwasoftennotatallusedtoalleviatethehunger

ofanypopulation.Duringtheearly1990s,manyobservedfoodaidbeingtradedfor

arms or stolen and then sold formoney,whichwas pocketed by the government

(Perlez,1992).Or,inRwandaduringtheearly1990s,wheregovernmentstealingof

foodaidwassoproblematicthataidwascanceledonseveraloccasions(Uvin,1998,

p.90).

Finally, a commonly citedproblem is that foodaid increases theamountof cheap

foodsinrecipientcountries,andthusdecreasesthepriceofagriculturalproduction

and the income of farmers in those countries (Pedersen, 1996; Kirwan and

McMillan, 2007). This not only decreases agricultural incomes but also increases

incomeinequalitybetweenurbanandruralworkers.

Inacompanionpaper,NunnandQian(2011),weexaminetheeffectoffoodaidon

the incidence of conflict, a potential negative impact of food aid that has been

7

hypothesized in the literaturebutnever formally tested. Identifying such a causal

mechanismisfraughtwithdifficulties.Toovercomethese,wefocusspecificallyon

wheataidfromtheUnitedStates,whichconstitutesthevastmajorityofaidgivenby

thelargestdonorofaidintheworld(seebelow).WeinstrumentforU.S.wheataid

todonorcountriesusingweatherinducedwheatproductionshocks.Ourestimates

show that food aid causes increased civil war incidence in receiving countries.

Althoughwefindlargeeffectsforinternalconflicts,wefindnoeffectsoninter‐state

conflict. We find that the effects on receiving countries within Africa are not

statisticallydifferentfromotherpartsoftheworld.However,theregionalestimates

areveryimprecise.

In summary, studies on the consequences of food aid thus far provide enough

evidence on the negative effects of food aid to warrant great concern over its

effectiveness.Tounderstandwhyfoodaiddoesnothavetheimpactit ismeantto,

wemust first understand the determinants of food aid,which is the focus of this

study.

III.AStatisticalOverviewofFoodAidtoAfricaandtheRestoftheDeveloping

World

This section provides a descriptive overview of the pattern of global food aid

shipments.It is importanttokeepafewfactsinmindforthefollowingdiscussion.

First,over90%offoodaidiscereals.Therefore,foodaidwillbesynonymouswith

cereals aid in thispaper. Second,when foodaid is reported, thevalueof foodaid

typically includes shipping costs,which can constitutemore than half of the total

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valueofaid(BarrettandMaxwell,2005).Sincedataonthe itemizedvalueof food

aidarenotavailableandshippingcompaniesaretypicallyfromtherichcountries,

wewillreportfoodaidintermsofvolumeoffoodratherthandollarvalue.Thisalso

sidestepssomedifficultiesininterpretationsinceitisnotclearhowexactlyfoodaid

isvalued.Moreover,grainmarketsarethoughttobesegmented,andthepricethat

the donor government values the food (or even the world grain price) may not

reflectthevaluetotherecipientsoffoodaid.

WebeginbyexaminingtheaggregatetrendinfoodaidshipmentstoAfricaandto

therestoftheworld.Thetotalvolumeoffoodaidshippedeachyear(measuredin

tonnes)between1971and2008isreportedinFigures1and2forAfricanandfor

non‐African countries, respectively. The data are from the Food and Agricultural

Organization’s(FAO)FAOSTATDatabase.Cerealsincludewheat,rice,barley,maize,

rye, oats, millets, sorghum, buckwheat, quinoa and other grains including mixed

grains. Donor and recipient countries may ship and receive different types of

cereals.Therefore,forthepurposesofcomparison,weoftenusethisbroadcategory

of cereals rather than specific types of cereals.Where possible, we also consider

specificcereals,suchaswheat.

There are interesting differences in the aggregate patterns between African and

non‐Africanrecipients.ForAfricaasawhole, foodaidhas increasedsteadily from

1971tothemid‐1980s,whilefortherestofthedevelopingworld,afterasharpfall

intheearly1970s,itremainedremarkablystableduringthistime.Inthelate1980s

foodaidtoAfricafellnoticeably,whileitremainedmuchmorestablefortherestof

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the developing world. Even today, the amount of food aid shipped to African

countries remains well below the levels that existed during the Cold War.

Importantly, this decline in food aid does not correspond to a similar decline in

poverty within Africa during the period, which suggests that other factors are

responsibleforthesignificantdeclineinfoodaid.

Figure1.TotalcerealaidshippedeachyeartoAfricancountries.

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Figure2.Totalcerealaidshippedeachyeartonon­Africancountries.

Figures3and4reporttheoriginsoffoodaidshipmentstoAfricanandnon‐African

recipients.Fromthefigures,itisclearthatthevastmajorityoffoodaidisfromthe

United States. Canada, Australia, and Japan are also significant suppliers of aid to

bothAfricanandnon‐Africancountries.

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Figure3.TotalcerealaidshippedtoAfricancountries,between1971­2008,bydonor.

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Figure4.Totalcerealaidshippedtonon­Africancountries,between1971­2008,bydonor.

Next, we turn to an overview of the recipient countries within Africa. The total

amount of food aid receivedduringour sampleperiodby eachAfrican country is

shown in Figures5 and6. Figure5 shows the countrieswith the largest food aid

receiptsandFigure6showsthecountrieswiththesmallestfoodaidreceipts.Note

thedifferenceinscalesforthetwofigures.

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Figure5.ThelargestAfricanrecipientsoftotalcerealaid1971­2008.

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Figure6.ThesmallestAfricanrecipientsoftotalcerealaid1971­2008.

Fromthefigures,it isclearthatEgypthasbeenbyfarthelargestrecipientoffood

aid. It is followed by Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco and Mozambique. The identity of

recipientcountrieswithinAfricamakesclearthefactthataidisoften(ortypically)

not given to the most needy. Egypt, the largest beneficiary of food aid, has per

capitaincomethatiswellabovetheaveragefortherestofAfrica.

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IV.DeterminantsofFoodAidinAfricaandtheRestoftheWorld

Wenowturntoanexaminationofthedeterminantsoffoodaid,focusingbothonthe

supply‐side (donor‐specific factors) as well as on the demand‐side (recipient‐

specificfactors).Wealsoconsiderhistoricalbilateraldeterminantsoffoodaid.

Ourempiricalanalysisexaminesvariationincerealfoodaidshipmentsfromdonor

countries to recipient countries every yearbetween1971and2008. Letd denote

donor countries, r recipient countries and t years. Further, let ln yd,r,t denote the

natural log of the total amount of cereal aid (measured byweight) shipped from

donorcountrydtoreceivingcountryr inyeart.Ourestimatingequationstakethe

followingform:

lnyd,r,t=αd+αr+αt+β1Xd,r+β2Xr,t­1+β3Xd,t­1+εd,r,t (1)

Ourspecificationincludesdonorfixedeffectsαd,recipientfixedeffectsαrandtime

periodfixedeffectsαt.Theequationincludesthefollowingdeterminantsoffoodaid

shipments: lagged recipient production of cereals denoted Xr,t­1, lagged donor

productionofcerealsXd,t­1,andhistoricalconnectionsbetweendonorandrecipient

countriesXd,r.Inpractice,whenexaminingdonorandrecipientproduction,wewill

considervariouslagstructures.

Since the dependent variable in (1) is the natural log of food aid shipments,

countrieswith zero aid flows in a particular period are omitted from the sample.

Therefore, our coefficients capture the correlation between the independent

variables of interest and the amount of food aid shipped, conditional on food aid

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beingshipped.Inotherwords,ourestimatescapturetheintensivemarginonly,and

not the extensive margin. Our estimates do not provide any evidence on the

determinants of whether donors ship any food aid to recipient countries in a

particularyear.

Recipientcountrycerealproduction

The first determinantwe examine is foodproduction in recipient countries. Since

thestatedpurposeofmostfoodaidis forhumanitarianrelief,weexpectthatfood

aidshipmentswillbegreatertocountriesaftertheyhaveaproductionshortagein

their country.Apriori, theexpecteddelaybetweendomesticproductionand food

aidreceiptsisnotclear.Forexample,iffoodaidcanrespondimmediately,thenwe

would expect a contemporaneous relationship between domestic production and

foodaid.Ifinsteadfoodaidrespondsmoreslowly,thenwewouldexpectproduction

toaffectfoodaidreceiptswithaoneortwoyearlag.

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Table1

Wetest foracontemporaneouseffectandone‐yearandtwo‐year laggedeffectsof

domesticproductiononfood.Domesticproductionismeasuredasthenaturallogof

domesticproduction,measuredinmetrictons(MT).ThedataarefromFAOSTAT.

Estimatesarereportedintable1.Theresultsincolumn1showthatwhencountries

havelowerproductioninaperiod,thenfoodaidreceiptsincreasethatperiodandin

thefollowingperiod.There isalsoevidenceofaresponsetwoyears later,butthis

effect is not statistically significant. These results provide evidence that food aid

doesrespondtorecipientcountryproductionshocks.LookingatAfricanandnon‐

Africanrecipientsseparately(columns2and3),wefindsomedifferences.Foodaid

appearstorespondmuchmorestronglytotheadverseproductionshocksofAfrican

countriesrelativetonon‐Africancountries.Oneexplanationforthisisthatnegative

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production shocksaremuchmore likely to result in lossof life inAfrica,wherea

larger proportion of the population is at or near subsistence consumption.

Therefore,theinternationalcommunityismuchmoreresponsivetotheseshocks.

The responsiveness of food aid to domestic production provides evidence that a

portion of food aid is indeed driven by humanitarian motives. Because both

productionandfoodaidaremeasuredinlogs,theestimatesprovidetheelasticityof

foodaidwithrespecttorecipientproduction.The0.22,0.16and0.09elasticitiesfor

Africancountries in the threeyears followingashockare large.Theysuggest that

for African countries, food aid does provide some insurance against negative

productionshocks.

We examine how this responsiveness varies by donor country.Motivated by the

finding intable1thatcontemporaneousandone‐year lagsofrecipientproduction

are important,weexamine the responsivenessof foodaid inperiod t to recipient

production inperiods t and t‐1.Weallowtheestimated impact todifferbydonor

country.Theestimationresultsarereportedintable2.Eachrowofthetablereports

the coefficient and standard error of the relationship between recipient cereal

production and food aid shipments from a donor country. The reported country

coefficients are ordered from the largest estimated impact to the smallest. The

resultsarereportedseparatelyforallrecipients,Africanrecipientsandnon‐African

recipients.

Aclearpatternemerges.First,thecoefficientsarenegativeforallcountries,which

suggests that in general, aid is more likely to go to countries soon after they

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experience adverseproduction shocks. Second, the results show that the food aid

provided by large cereal producing countries like Canada, China and the United

Statesrespondmostweaklytodomesticproduction.Anumberofexplanationsare

consistentwiththispattern,but it isconsistentwiththefinding inNunnandQian

(2011)thatfoodaidshipments–atleastfortheU.S.–aredrivennotonlybyneedin

receivingcountries,butalsobydonorcountrysupplyconsiderations.Weconsider

thispossibilityexplicitlylaterinthisstudy.

Table2

ComparingtheresultsforAfricanandnon‐Africanaidrecipients,severalinteresting

patterns emerge. The overall ranking of the responsiveness of donor countries is

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broadly similar. For example, Libya is alwaysamong themost responsiveand the

USA, Canada, India and China are always among the least responsive. However,

there are some stark differences. For example, while aid from New Zealand and

AustriaisveryresponsivetoAfrican‐recipientproductionshocks(coeff=‐0.38and‐

0.36),theyareveryunresponsivetonon‐African‐recipientproductionshocks(coeff

=‐0.02and‐0.11).

Donor­specificdeterminantsoffoodaid

One reason thatmayexplainwhy for somecountriesaid is less responsive to the

needsofrecipientcountryproductionisthataidmayalsobedrivenbyobjectivesof

the donor country that are unrelated to recipient production.We investigate two

suchpossibleobjectives.

Donorcerealproduction

First,weexploretherolethatproductionshocksindonorcountriesmayplay.Many

of the rich donor countries implement policies that protect domestic agricultural

prices.Onewayofdoingthisistopurchase“excess”domesticfoodproductionand

give or sell it in far awaymarketswhere itwill not affect the prices of domestic

producers.BarrettandMaxwell(2005)discusssuchpoliciesinhisbookonfoodaid

policy.Manyofthelargestfoodproducerspracticesuchpolicies.

TheUnitedStateshasperhapsbeenthemostpersistentpractitionerofsuchpolicies

underPL480,whichwasestablishedundertheEisenhoweradministrationin1954.

PresidentKennedyrenamedittheFoodforPeaceProgramin1962.Itiscomprised

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ofthreeaidcategories:TitlesI,IIandIII.TitleI,whichhistoricallyhasbeenthemost

important component of food aid, is administered by the U.S. Department of

Agriculture (USDA) and provides low interest loans to developing and transition

countries for thepurchasesofU.S. agricultural commodities. Title II aid is gifts of

food from the U.S. government for meeting emergency and non‐emergency food

needs. Inrecentyears,emergencyfoodneedshavereceivedmuchmoreresources

than non‐emergency food needs. The aid is often administered by NGOs. Title III

provides government‐to‐government grants to support long‐term growth in

developing countries andmakes up a very small part of PL480 food aid (Kodras,

1993).

We now examine whether domestic production shocks in the donor country are

correlatedwithsubsequentfoodaidshipments.Wecontinuetoexaminetheyearof

the production shock and the two years that follow: t, t+1, t+2. If domestic

production shocks affect food aid shipments, then this suggests that alternative

factors – besides purely humanitarian considerations – also come into playwhen

decidingfoodaidshipments.

We begin by examining whether food aid shipments from the United States are

affectedbyU.S.productionshocks.ThisismotivatedbythefindingsfromNunnand

Qian(2011).Table3reportstheseestimatesincolumns1‐3.Theunitofobservation

isarecipientcountryinayear.Theestimatesshowthatthereisstrongevidenceofa

positivecerealproductionshockincreasingthesupplyofcerealaidtwoyearslater

iftherecipientcountryisAfrican.

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Table3.U.S.ProductionandU.S.FoodAid.

Columns 4‐6 of the Table 3 report estimates looking specifically at wheat, which

comprises thevastmajorityofU.S. foodaid (NunnandQian,2011).Withwheata

similar relationship is found. A positive wheat production shock increases the

amountofwheataidgiventoAfricancountriestwoyearslater.Forwheatwealso

findanalmost identical effect fornon‐African countries. Forboth, the elasticity is

about1.3.ThissuggestsaverystrongrelationshipbetweenU.S.productionandfood

aid shipments. (Note that the estimates shownhere illustrate thatU.S. foodaid is

drivenbyU.S.production,theargumentfromNunnandQian(2011).However,the

estimatesfromthetwostudiesarenotdirectlycomparablebecauseNunnandQian

(2011) estimates a different specification; they exploit both time variation inU.S.

productionandcross‐sectionalvariationinthelikelihoodofreceivinganyU.S.food

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aidandhavingmanymorecontrols)sothat theycancontrol forcountryandyear

fixedeffects.

Table4reports thesameestimatesbut forallotherdonorcountries.The findings

show that for non‐U.S. donors, there is no relationship between domestic cereal

production and cereal aid shipments. This is true whether or not the recipient

countryisAfrican.

Table4.ProductionandFoodAid(non­U.S.donors)

Takentogether,theresultsoftables3and4provideevidencethattheUnitedStates

is theonlydonorthatsystematicallydetermines its foodaidamountsbasedon its

owndomesticproduction.

Donor­recipientcolonialties

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Wealsoinvestigatetheroleofformercolonialties.Theimportanceofcoloniallinks

throughhistoricalchannelshasbeenemphasizedbyrecentinfluentialstudiessuch

as Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001). We argue that colonial history can

continue to matter through contemporary channels if it affects the relationship

between two countries today. We ask whether colonial heritagematters for the

patternoffoodaidshipments.Totestforthis,weincludeinourestimatingequation

twoindicatorvariables.Thefirstequalsoneifthedonorcountryisaformercolonial

“master” of the recipient country. An example is Britain and Ghana. The second

equals one if the donor country and the recipient country are former colonial

“brothers”–i.e.,bothareformercoloniesofaEuropeancountry.Anexamplewould

betheUnitedStatesandNigeria,whichwerebothcoloniesofBritain.

Estimationresultsarereportedintable5.Asshownincolumn1,colonialheritage

matters.Foodaidshipmentsaregreaterifeitherthedonorwasaformercolonizer

oftherecipientorifthetwocountriessharedasimilarcolonizer.Interestingly,the

lattereffectisstatisticallylargerinmagnitudethantheformereffect.

WefindstarkdifferencesbetweenformercolonieswithinandoutsideofAfrica.The

estimates in columns2 and3 show that both sets of countries aremore likely to

receive aid from a donor thatwas a colonial brother (relative a countrywith no

colonial ties).However,onlyAfricancountriesreceivemoreaid fromtheir former

colonialmasters.Thisisinterestingbecauseitsuggeststhatformercolonialtiesare

muchmoreimportantinAfricaneconomies.ThislikelyreflectsthefactthatAfrican

coloniesmorerecentlygainedindependencerelativeotherformercolonies.

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Table5.TheImportanceofColonialTies.

It is possible that colonial ties not only affect the level of food aid shipped from

donor to recipient country, but also the responsiveness of aid to recipient needs.

This would occur, for example, if colonial ties facilitated greater concern by the

donor country for the recipient country or if ties resulted inbetter infrastructure

thatincreasetheflowofinformationregardingaproductionfalland/orthephysical

transportation of food aid in response to that fall. We test for such effects by

returning to our examination of the responsiveness of food aid shipments to

recipient production, but allowing for the relationship between donor shipments

and recipientproduction shocks todifferdependingon the colonialhistoryof the

pair.

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TheresultsarereportedinTable6.Tosimplifytheexpositionoftheinterpretation

oftheresults,weexaminetheaverageofthenaturallogofproductioninperiodst‐1

and t instead of production in periods t‐2, t‐1 and t. (The conclusions from the

estimatesarequalitativelyidenticalifoneconsidersproductioninthethreeperiods

separately.)We then interactdomesticproductionwith the twocolonial indicator

variables to allowdifferential responsiveness by colonial history.We also include

bothindicatorvariablesdirectlyintheestimatingequation.

The results show that for all recipient countries, aid is less responsive to local

productionshockswhenitcomesfromcolonialbrothers.ForAfricancountriesfood

aid shipments are less to recipient shocks fromboth former colonialmasters and

brothers.Theseresultssuggestthatalthoughformercolonialtiesresultinmoreaid

beinggiven,thataidisnottargetedtorelievethepressuresfromproductionshocks.

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Table6.ColonialTiesandFoodAidResponsiveness

IV.Conclusions

The determinants and consequences of foreign aid have come under significant

amounts of scrutiny and criticism in recent years. For example, the first three

articles in the CATO Journal in 2009were about the fallibility of aid. Food aid is

central to foreignaid, as it isobviouslymeant forhumanitarianpurposesandhas

historically been the most important component of foreign aid. Its humanitarian

intentisexplicit.Forexample,U.S.presidentJohnF.KenneynamedtheU.S.foodaid

program is officially namedFood For Peace. In this descriptive paper,we provide

evidenceconsistentwith theobservationsof concernedpolicymakers: foodaid is

partlydeterminedbyhumanitarianpurposesandpartlydeterminedbyobjectives

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thatareunrelatedtotheneedsoftherecipientcountries,suchascolonialtiesand

otherpolicyobjectivesofthedonorcountries.

Inaddition,weshowthreestrikingnewfacts.First,foodaidflowsfromthelargest

donors of food aid, such as the United States, are the least responsive to the

productionofrecipients.Second,formercolonialtiesareanimportantdeterminant

forfoodaidreceipt,butthisincreasedaidislessresponsivetodonorneed.Itdoes

not appear successful at reaching those that need it most when they need it. In

addition,theimportanceofcolonialtiesappearstobedifferentforAfricanandnon‐

Africancountries,reflectingperhapsthedifferences intimesince independenceof

the twogroups.All countriesaremore likely togetaid fromtheir formercolonial

brothers.ButonlyAfricancountriesarealsomorelikelytogetfoodaidfromformer

colonialmasters. Finally, aiddue to former colonial ties is less responsive to food

production falls in recipient countries than other aid, especially for African

countries.

Thesefindingsstronglysupporttherecentconcernsofpolicymakersandobservers

thatfoodaidisnotbeingallocatedtofulfillitsprimarypurpose,whichistoalleviate

hunger. They also open up several questions. For example, what roles do former

colonial links play in development through contemporary channels? And perhaps

more importantly,what are thebarriers tomore effective targeting of aid? Is it a

lack of intent (or the presence of other objectives) for donor countries – i.e., is it

political? Or are there other barriers such as the transmission of information,

29

transport or effective delivery within the recipient countries? These are all

importantavenuesforfutureresearch.

30

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