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With efforts across the industrial countries to increase the amount of foreign aid mounting, it is important to understand its determinants. This paper examines the factors affecting the support for foreign aid among voters in donor countries. A simple theoretical model, which considers an endogenous determination of official and private aid flows, relates individual income to aid support through the elasticity of substitution and also suggests that government efficiency is an important factor in this regard. The empirical analysis of individual attitudes, based on the World Values Surveys, reveals that satisfaction with own government performance and individual relative income are positively related to the willingness to provide foreign aid. Furthermore, when using donor country data we find that aid is adversely affected by government inefficiency and income inequality.

The aim of this paper is to provide comprehensive empirical evidence on recent theories that link democracy and income inequality for the period 1960–1997. In simple cross‐country regressions I find a non‐monotonic link between democracy and inequality when using ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Eusufzai tests. I also employ dynamic panel data techniques, which control for potential simultaneity and heterogeneity problems. I also find support for the existence of apolitical Kuznets curve. Moreover, it appears that income inequality is unconditionally persistent. Results are robust to different democracy proxies when sensitivity analysis is applied.

The aim of this paper is to provide comprehensive empirical evidence on recent theories that link democracy and income inequality for the period 1960-1995. In simple cross-country regressions I find a non-monotonic link between these two variables when using ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Eusufzai tests. Since these results cannot be taken as true time series findings, even though recent theories that explain such a link are, I also employ recent methods applied to dynamic models on panel data. These techniques allow accounting for potential simultaneity and heterogeneity problems. Using the preferred econometric methodology, I also find support for the existence of a political Kuznets curve. Moreover, it appears that income inequality is unconditionally persistent. Results hold for two different democracy proxies and when sensitivity analysis is applied.

Abstract
We exploit a field experiment by (Chong, A., and M. Valdivia. 2023. "Edutainment, Savings, and Generational Differences in Rural Areas of Peru." In Working Paper. Department of Economics, Georgia State University) and test whether poor women from rural areas in developing countries that are able to save seek dwelling-related assets and find causal evidence that this is indeed the case. Furthermore, we also find that the older cohort of women, those aged forty and higher, also prioritize material assets related to health-related expenditures, in particular, access to public sewerage system.

AbstractWe provide evidence of health impacts of a public–private rural roads maintenance programme in Peru, which is characterized by a contracting mechanism that employs small local firms. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that improved roads connectivity leads to positive health externalities. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ObjectivesThis article aims to answer the question of who favors strong political leadership, with a few checks on its power.MethodsFirst, we specify a formal model to generate testable hypotheses on the relationship between income and attitudes toward strong political leadership support. Then, we test these claims using a rich survey of individual attitudes across countries from 1999 to 2004.ResultsWe present evidence indicating that the support for such strong leadership is inversely related to individual income, even after controlling for additional characteristics, such as education. Individual attitudes toward strong leadership are also inversely related to country‐level indicators such as income inequality, level of GDP per capita, and institutional characteristics.ConclusionWe rationalize these findings by suggesting that a strong leader, sometimes with little legislative oversight, nevertheless benefits from public support in expectation that his policies would provide protection from the expropriation by powerful elites.

AbstractTo what extent do imposed institutions shape preferences? We consider this issue by comparing the market-versus-state attitudes of respondents from a capitalist country, Finland, and from an ex-communist group of Baltic countries, and by arguing that the period of communist rule can be viewed as an 'experiment' in institutional imposition. We find that, consistent with some earlier related work, citizens from ex-communist countries tend to be more supportive of state ownership than respondents from capitalist economies. However, they also favour increasing inequality and competition as the means to enhance incentives. We conclude that, in some important relevant dimensions, institutional imposition (which lasted for about 50 years) had a limited effect on preferences.