Race to give? The selective effectiveness of United States trade capacity building assistance

Pundits and scholars have long debated the effectiveness of foreign aid: does it lead to economic growth or is it simply throwing money ‘down the rat hole’? This paper re-invigorates the debate by examining the question through a new lens. Rather than examining the effectiveness of general foreign aid on economic growth, this paper tests the impact of targeted foreign aid on a narrower economic activity. Specifically, this paper investigates the impact of United States trade capacity building aid. This targeted aid aims to increase recipient countries’ exporting capacity, which may lead to growth, rather than directly increasing growth. If trade capacity building assistance is universally effective, one would expect to see increases in recipient-country exports to both the US and the rest of the world. If trade capacity building is selectively effective, recipient-country exports should increase only to the US. If trade capacity building is ineffective, one would expect no impact on recipient-country exports. This paper finds substantial support that US trade capacity building is selectively effective. US trade capacity building tends to increase recipient-country exports to the United States, but not to the rest of the world. Although the US results may not be generalizable to other donors, this approach suggests an easily expandable research program.