Marshall Digital Scholar

GIS Application in Economic Analyses: Using Aid Effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa as an Example

Marshall University

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques provide invaluable tools in analyzing spatial patterns in economics. Different selections of spatial data layers enable spatial analyses for specific projects or tasks. Using a project on foreign aid effectiveness in sub-Saharan Africa as an example, this presentation shows that detailed aid effectiveness patterns at local level can be revealed using the cutting-edge GIS techniques and spatial analytic skills, which were largely neglected by the previous literature of aid effectiveness at country level. Overcoming the “aggregation bias”, this project finds that aid targeted at local level tends to promote local economic growth, while aid targeted at more aggregated levels can hurt local economic prosperity. Weighting matrices of spatial interdependence have also been built using the information of the local administrative divisions, and positive spillovers of aid effectiveness across adjacent counties are detected.