Doing Well by Doing Good: The Impact of Foreign Aid on Foreign Public Opinion

Benjamin E. Goldsmith, Yusaku Horiuchi and Terence Wood

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2014, vol. 9, issue 1, 87-114

Abstract: Does foreign aid extended by one country improve that country's image among populations of recipient countries? Using a multinational survey, we show that a United States aid program targeted to address HIV and AIDS substantially improves perceptions of the U.S. Our identification strategy for causal inference is to use instrumental variables measuring the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS problem in aid recipient countries. Our finding implies that in addition to its potential humanitarian benefits, foreign aid that is targeted, sustained, effective, and visible can serve as an important strategic goal for those countries that give it: fostering positive perceptions among foreign publics. By doing good, a country can do well.

Keywords: Foreign aid; U.S. foreign policy; HIV; AIDS; PEPFAR; Public opinion; Instrumental variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00013036 (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00013036

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Quarterly Journal of Political Science from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().