Agricultural official development assistance: an assessment of empirical aid determinants : Trends and shocks of aid activity to agriculture from 2002 to 2018

Abstract: This thesis uses an event approach to understand some under-researched aspects of bilateral development assistance (ODA) in the agricultural sector. The empirical findings on ODA analysis largely agree on some historical explanatory determinants, both political and economic, driving bilateral ODA. Despite being statistically and economically significant, they have never been used to describe agricultural bilateral ODA. Given that, the purpose of our thesis work is to generate new evidence on the possible shocks in donor countries from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in bilateral agricultural ODA. We investigated whether exogenous phenomena and shocks such as governance and financial crisis, can globally impact donor allocation decisions. By using a sample of 140 recipient countries worldwide and 29 DAC donors from 2002 to 2018, we found out that ODA for agriculture responds better to ODA’s main empirical determinants, being more substantial than the ones specific to the agricultural sector. These exogenous phenomena mirror the increasing trends in ODA transfers. Methodologically, we constructed and analysed a panel dataset using a Tobit censored model. Data unavailability however constrained the analysis, emphasising the need for future research.