Discussion Paper
No. 2019-27 | April 03, 2019
Lionel Roger
A replication of ‘The long-run impact of foreign aid in 36 African countries: Insights from multivariate time series analysis’ (Oxford Bulletin of Statistics and Economics, 2014)
(Published in Replication Study)

Abstract

Macroeconomic data have been shown to vary substantially between sources, especially so for low-income countries. While the impact of data revisions on inference is well documented for cross-country studies, there is no systematic analysis of the robustness of results obtained from time series analysis. This is despite the fact that time series analysis is an integral part of the econometric toolkit of government analysts, and informs policy decisions in many areas of macroeconomics. This study fills this gap for the notoriously controversial aid-effectiveness debate using the statistical framework by Juselius et al. (2014, Oxf Bull Econ Stat): by adopting alternative sources of GDP data in 36 sub-Saharan African countries The author finds that results remain robust across datasets in two thirds of the countries, but sometimes drastically change in others. These findings suggest that robustness checks such as those carried out here should become standard procedure for macroeconomic analysis using single-country time series.

Data Set

JEL Classification:

C32, F35, O11

Links

Cite As

[Please cite the corresponding journal article] Lionel Roger (2019). A replication of ‘The long-run impact of foreign aid in 36 African countries: Insights from multivariate time series analysis’ (Oxford Bulletin of Statistics and Economics, 2014). Economics Discussion Papers, No 2019-27, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2019-27


Comments and Questions



Katarina Juselius - Original authors’ feedback
April 03, 2019 - 11:38
see attached file

Lionel Roger - Thank you.
May 20, 2019 - 15:50 | Author's Homepage
I am very flattered by Ms Juselius' positive feedback. I agree with her assessment regarding the implications of the study, which I believe comes out in the paper as well. It is not meant to be a rebuttal of the original study, but - given legitimate concerns about the data - merely an exploration of how stable the results will be when applied to more recent publications of PWT and WDI. Indeed, the results are not all bad, as the overall result of aid effectiveness emerges from either of the datasets.

Anonymous - Referee report 1
April 03, 2019 - 11:39
see attached file

Lionel Roger - see attached file
May 31, 2019 - 16:29
see attached file

Anonymous - Referee report 2
April 09, 2019 - 10:30
see attached file

Lionel Roger - Thorough review.
May 31, 2019 - 16:24
I thank the anonymous reviewer for the thorough reading of my paper and the favourable review. All points raised are legitimate and can be addressed.

W. Robert Reed, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand - Decision letter
June 05, 2019 - 11:38
see attached file

Lionel Roger - see attached file
October 31, 2019 - 12:54
see attached file