Foreign Aid and Corruption: Do Women Make the Difference?

Maria Rosaria Carillo, Valentina Chiariello (), Rita De Siano () and Luca Pennacchio ()
Additional contact information
Valentina Chiariello: University of Naples Parthenope
Rita De Siano: University of Naples Parthenope
Luca Pennacchio: University of Naples Parthenope

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, 2025, vol. 11, issue 1, No 5, 103-151

Abstract: Abstract The longstanding debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid has largely concluded that corruption is one of the major reasons for the failure of aid to sustain development in recipient countries. This paper investigates whether greater involvement of women in recipient countries' political and economic life enhances the effectiveness of foreign aid by reducing the corruption that usually accompanies massive foreign aid. The hypothesis is tested by cross-country empirical analysis, addressing the potential endogeneity of aid and women’s participation using an IV approach. We provide robust and causal evidence that greater women’s political and labor market participation does reduce the corruption associated with foreign aid, especially when the aid targets sectors that enhance women’s well-being. Moreover, we find that while all the dimensions of women's social participation are effective in reducing corruption, the greatest effect derives from the political dimension.

Keywords: Corruption; Foreign aid; Women’s participation in society; Gender roles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 F35 J16 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40797-023-00260-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:italej:v:11:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s40797-023-00260-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40797

DOI: 10.1007/s40797-023-00260-4

Access Statistics for this article

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti is currently edited by Roberto Cellini

More articles in Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti from Springer, Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().