Reshaping aid geographical allocation: The role of immigration in Spanish Official Development Assistance

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The intensification of the international migration flows sent by developing countries and received by developed countries is ‘reshaping’ the aid map of the 21st century. However, to date the influence of immigration on the geographical distribution of aid has been little studied. This paper proposes a general framework for analysing the extent to which immigration flows affect the allocation of Official Development Assistance (ODA). We apply this model to the case of Spain (a country that, in a short time, became one of the top-ten bilateral donors and one of the main recipients of immigration in Europe) during the period from 1998 to 2009 (prior to the current economic crisis, which has slowed down the immigration flows temporarily and reduced the ODA budget drastically). The estimations reveal that immigration is relevant both to the selection of aid partners, and to the allocation of aid quotas, thus ‘reshaping’ the geographical strategy of Spain’s public aid.