Determinants of International Emergency Aid—Humanitarian Need Only?

SummaryWe use an original data set covering 270 natural disasters to analyze the determinants of international emergency aid. Although humanitarian need appears to be a major determinant of emergency relief payments, our results suggest that political and strategic factors play a crucial role in emergency aid allocation as well. On average, donor governments favor smaller, geographically closer and oil exporting countries, and display significant biases in favor of politically less aligned countries as well as toward their former colonies. We also test and reject the independence of donors’ aid decisions, finding strong evidence for bandwagon effects in humanitarian assistance.