Title:      The Strategic Interdependence of Foreign Aid: A
Theoretically Informed Application of the Spatial Autoregressive
Model

Authors:    Martin Steinwand

Entrydate:  2008-07-07 10:53:11

Keywords:   Spatial Autoregressive Model, Connectivity Matrix,
Public Goods

Abstract:   Spatial statistical methods in political science
provide a tool to deal with spatial and other forms of
interdependence in observational data. However, political
scientist have been slow to use theory in conceptualizing how
political units interconnect other than through geography. In
this paper, I use a game theoretic impure public good model to
derive the connectivity matrix for a spatial autoregressive
(SAR) statistical model. I estimate two SAR models with pure
respectively impure public good weights and compare their
performance in summarizing data on international aid commitments
from 1974 to 2006. I find some evidence for impure public good
characteristics of aid during the cold war, and strong evidence
for pure public good characteristics after the end of the cold
war.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=792

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