Giving and Receiving Foreign Aid: Does Conflict Count?

Do bilateral donors, whether for strategic or altruistic reasons, single out countries in or near a conflict as foreign aid recipients? We revisit the aid allocation debate, studying twenty bilateral donors over four decades. We find that allocation is based on the political and economic cooperation it could encourage, as well as on the economic development it could create. All donors condition aid on the presence of conflict, although in differing ways. The United States allocates large amounts of development aid to countries bordering a conflict, both pre- and post-Cold War, while donors traditionally seen as altruistic display strategic tendencies. • An earlier version of this paper was completed while both authors were at Washington University in St. Louis. We are grateful to Steve Fazzari and Gary Miller for reading, encouraging, and commenting o