The Impact of Foreign Aid on Government Spending, Revenue and Domestic Borrowing in Ethiopia

Resumo

The main aim of this Working Paper is to assess the impact of foreign aid inflows on public expenditure, revenue and domestic borrowing in Ethiopia. The paper provides a literature overview of the fiscal effects of aid, and then applies a fiscal response model to Ethiopian data for the period 1964-2005. Since the empirical literature finds little evidence of common cross-country patterns, this highlights the important role that country-specific circumstances play in determining fiscal outcomes. By studying the particular fiscal dynamics in Ethiopia, the paper finds that foreign aid has had a positive impact on government investment, while its effect on current expenditure has been less pronounced. Moreover, by disaggregating aid inflows into grants and foreign lending, the paper is able to analyse their specific roles and impacts. The results support the conclusion that aid inflows increase public investment, with loans having a stronger impact than grants. Both aid grants and loans have a strong negative effect on domestic borrowing, suggesting that aid and domestic financing are close substitutes. Finally, the results also appear to support the hypothesis that higher aid flows displace domestic revenues. However, this particular finding does not seem to be robust across the sample.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Estudo

Ano

2007

Instituição

Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada

Fonte

Repositório do Ipea

Idioma

Inglês

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.ipea.gov.br:11058/15813

Licença

Licença total exclusiva

Temas

Finanças Públicas

Palavras-chave

Foreign AidAid EffectivenessFiscal Response LiteratureEthiopia