Determinants of International Emergency Aid - Humanitarian Need Only ?

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Author(s)
Fink, G. & Redaelli, S.
Publication language
English
Pages
38pp
Date published
01 Feb 2009
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Funding and donors, humanitarian action, Government
Organisations
World Bank

The authors use an original data set covering more than 400 recent natural disasters to analyze the determinants of international emergency aid. Although humanitarian need is a major determinant of emergency relief payments, the results imply that political and strategic factors play a crucial role in the emergency aid allocation. On average, donor governments favor smaller, geographically closer, and oil exporting countries, and display significant biases in favor of politically less aligned countries as well as toward their former colonies. The authors also test and reject the independence of donors' aid decisions, finding strong evidence for bandwagon effects in humanitarian assistance.