Global challenges and country-specific responses through aid financing of global public goods

In this paper we revisit the impact of global public goods (GPGs) in Official Development Assistance budgets using panel data covering the DAC countries during the period 1973-2009. Our findings reveal a weak crowding-out effect of traditional aid and an increasing financing to weakest-link technology GPGs by rich countries aiming at avoiding sub-optimal levels of provision in strategic sectors. Searching for the determinants of GPG-related aid, we find a significant role played by variables expressing donors’ public finance constraints, openness to the rest of the world and preferences for domestic expenditures.