How big is China’s aid to Africa? Does it complement or undermine the efforts of traditional donors? China releases little information, and outside estimates of the size and nature of Chinese aid vary widely. In an effort to overcome this problem, AidData, based at the College of William and...

This article introduces a new dataset of official financing from China to 138 developing countries between 2000 and 2014. It investigates whether Chinese development finance affects economic growth in recipient countries. The results demonstrate that Chinese development finance boosts short-term...

Chinese “aid” is a lightning rod for criticism. Policymakers, journalists, and public intellectuals claim that Beijing is using its largesse to cement alliances with political leaders, secure access to natural resources, and create exclusive commercial opportunities for Chinese firms — all...

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial concentration of economic activity. Leveraging a new global dataset of geo-located Chinese government-financed projects over the period from 2000 to 2014 together with measures of spatial inequality based on...

How do development projects influence the geographic distribution of economic activity within low-income and middle-income countries? Existing research focuses on the effects of Western development projects on inter-personal inequality and inequality across different subnational regions....

Chinese “aid” is a lightning rod for criticism. Policymakers, journalists, and public intellectuals claim that Beijing is using its largesse to cement alliances with political leaders, secure access to natural resources, and create exclusive commercial opportunities for Chinese firms — all...

This paper introduces a new dataset of official financing — including foreign aid and other forms of concessional and non-concessional state financing — from China to 138 countries between 2000 and 2014. We use these data to investigate whether and to what extent Chinese aid affects economic...

This paper studies the causal effect of transport infrastructure on the spatial concentration of economic activity. Leveraging a new global dataset of geo-located Chinese government-financed projects over the period from 2000 to 2014 together with measures of spatial inequality based on...