Does Foreign Aid Help or Hurt?

UN Security Council membership has thus far been shown to increase the likelihood of receiving financial perks. With this finding in mind, we turn to a crucial question: What are the consequences? Does the foreign aid funneled to UNSC members have a beneficial, benign, or negative impact in the recipient countries?

Note that the financial favors to UNSC members might result in minimal consequences. If so, then we can report a straightforward conclusion to our analysis: (1) The UNSC is important enough to powerful countries that they are willing to offer bribes and rewards to the countries elected to serve, and (2) a UNSC seat is thus a useful commodity for the government of a developing country even if the financial favors do little for the population as a whole. The donor government gains political support on the UNSC while the recipient government receives a payoff. No harm, no foul, as they say.