Abstract
This paper contributes to the literature on aid allocation by investigating whether export product upgrading (export product diversification and export quality improvement) in both donors and aid recipient-countries matters for donors' aid allocation. The analysis is conducted in a gravity type framework model over a panel dataset comprising 23 donor-countries and 126 recipient-countries over the period 1970-2010. The study uses both within fixed effects and fixed effects quantile regression estimators to perform the analysis. The empirical results suggest evidence that export product diversification in donor-countries does not influence their bilateral aid supply, but an improvement in their overall export quality does generate higher bilateral aid to recipient-countries. In the meantime, while export product diversification in recipient countries does not influence the bilateral aid these countries receive from donors, bilateral aid supplied by donors declines when recipient-countries experience higher overall export quality improvement. Finally, the impact of export upgrading in recipient-countries on the bilateral aid received from donors is dependent upon recipient-countries' level of economic development, proxied by their real per capita income.
