Human rights and U.S. economic aid to Africa

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Abstract
Recently a study by one of the co‐authors (Poe 1992) appeared to show that human rights impacted the allocation of economic aid to Western hemispheric nations, and to a small sample of countries from around the world, during the 1980s. In this study we make an effort to resolve some of the difficulties evident in this study, and previous work on the human rights/economic aid linkage, by increasing the number of cases available for analysis, while focusing on the African region, from 1983 to 1988. Statistical analyses conducted with the GLS‐ARMA technique provide clear evidence that human rights abuse has been a moderately important determinant of U.S. bilateral economic aid allocation to Africa. Recipient need is also found to have impacted the allocation of U.S. economic aid, but such humanitarian motives are clearly weighed against more self‐serving strategic, and political concerns.