Bilateral donors use foreign aid to pursue soft power. We test the effectiveness of aid in reaching this goal by leveraging a new dataset on the precise commitment, implementation, and completion dates of Chinese development projects. We use data...

This paper introduces a new dataset of official financing — including foreign aid and other forms of concessional and non-concessional state financing

China’s rapidly growing economic activities are visible across the African continent in its bilateral trade, investment overseas, development aid activities, and migratory pattern. China has, for example, quickly evolved from being an aid recipient...

Chinese aid comes with few strings attached, allowing recipient country leaders to use it for domestic political purposes. The vulnerability of Chinese

This article investigates whether China’s foreign aid is particularly prone to capture by political leaders of aid-receiving countries. We examine whe

US and European policymakers are no longer taking a “wait and see” position on China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Late last year, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis challenged the fundamental premise of BRI, noting that “there are...

How do development projects influence the geographic distribution of economic activity within low-income and middle-income countries? Existing research

This paper introduces a new dataset of official financing — including foreign aid and other forms of concessional and non-concessional state financing