12:01AM
Chart of the day: How much aid is too much?
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 12:01AM 
Click smaller one below to enlarge.
Experience says once a country gets above approximately 15% of the GDP in aid, they're in trouble (it's a diversionary effect that also allows the government to care less what its public thinks).
This slide shows net aid as a percentage of government expenditures, where the percentages are naturally going to stand far higher.
What stands out:
1) the single-digit crowd of North Africa and the southern cone (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, South Africa) and the outlier of Equatorial Guinea; and
2) the 100-plus-% crowd of Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, C.A.R., Congo, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Uganda (98%).
;)
Reader Comments (1)
Aid makes gov't less responsive to their population and can mess up Darwinian social/political/economic evolution...I get it; but I don't think aid:gov't expenditures has as much of a causal relationship to the well being of a country as is presented here. Still, neat data set and an interesting place to start.