Tracking Under-Reported Financial Flows: China's Development Finance and the Aid-Conflict Nexus Revisited

Courant Research Centre Discussion Paper No. 175, University of Goettingen

61 Pages Posted: 29 May 2015

See all articles by Austin Strange

Austin Strange

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Government

Bradley Parks

AidData

Michael J. Tierney

College of William and Mary

Andreas Fuchs

Kiel Institute for the World Economy; University of Goettingen (Göttingen) - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Axel Dreher

Heidelberg University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 2015

Abstract

China’s provision of development finance to other countries is sizable but reliable information is scarce. We introduce a new open source methodology for collecting project-level development finance information and create a database of Chinese official finance to Africa from 2000-2011. We find that China’s commitments amounted to approximately US $73 billion, of which US $15 billion are comparable to Official Development Assistance following OECD definitions. We provide details on 1,511 projects to 50 African countries. We use this database to extend previous research on aid and conflict, which suffers from omitted variable bias due to the exclusion of Chinese development finance. Our results show that sudden withdrawals of “traditional” aid no longer induce conflict in the presence of sufficient alternative funding from China. Our findings highlight the importance of gathering more complete data on the development activities of “non-traditional donors” to better understand the link between aid and conflict.

Keywords: Development Finance, Foreign Aid, Non-DAC Donors, South-South Cooperation, China, Africa, Aid Shocks, Violent Armed Conflict, Civil War, Intrastate War

JEL Classification: F35, O19, O22

Suggested Citation

Strange, Austin and Parks, Bradley and Tierney, Michael J. and Fuchs, Andreas and Fuchs, Andreas and Dreher, Axel, Tracking Under-Reported Financial Flows: China's Development Finance and the Aid-Conflict Nexus Revisited (May 2015). Courant Research Centre Discussion Paper No. 175, University of Goettingen, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2611110 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2611110

Austin Strange (Contact Author)

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Government ( email )

1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Bradley Parks

AidData ( email )

No Address Available

Michael J. Tierney

College of William and Mary ( email )

P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23185
United States

Andreas Fuchs

Kiel Institute for the World Economy ( email )

Kiellinie 66
Kiel, Schleswig-Hosltein 24105
Germany

University of Goettingen (Göttingen) - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ( email )

Platz der Goettinger Sieben 3
Goettingen, 37073
Germany

Axel Dreher

Heidelberg University ( email )

Grabengasse 1
Heidelberg, 69117
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.axel-dreher.de

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