Does U.S. Aid Improve Human Rights Conditions of Aid-Recipient Countries?

Abstract

This paper examines whether U.S. aid improves the human rights conditions in aid-recipient countries. Using the cross-sectional time series data for more than 100 countries from 2007 to 2018, the multivariate regression model shows a significant positive relationship between U.S. aid receipts and human rights improvement. When the U.S. increases its foreign aid amount over the recipient country's GDP by 1% point, the level of human rights conditions in aid-recipient countries subsequently improves by 0.5%. This paper contributes to the literature in three dimensions. First, it compares the annual change in U.S. aid and the subsequent annual change in human rights instead of the absolute amount of U.S. aid and the absolute level of human rights that are used in the literature. Second, it uses the Fragile States Index as a measure of human rights which reflects the human rights conditions more comprehensively than the measures used by literature. Third, it uses the actual disbursement amount of U.S. aid rather than the obligation amount used by the literature. This paper provides evidence that U.S. foreign aid enhances human rights conditions in aid-recipient countries which is the desired outcome.