1. Aid Bypass and Public Trust in Institutions
By Morgan Snow and Tracey Zhang

2. Background Previous aid bypass studies
Effect of public opinion on foreign aid
Looked closely at Dietrich’s research → quality of governance and state bypass of aid; corruption and state bypass of aid → looked at recipients of aid, we’re looking at donors

3. Research Question
How does public trust in government compared to trust in nonstate development actors affect the allocation of state-to-state aid versus aid to non-state actors?
Hypothesis

4. Theory
Public opinion serves as a proxy for cultural attitudes, which in turn shape policy
Government officials listen to public opinion due to public pressure

5. Methodology Variables:
Independent: the ratio of trust in government and trust in nonstate development actors
“I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all?”
Dependent: proportion of non-state aid to state-to-state aid
Looked at surveys rating how a much population trusts govt/aid
talk about control variables too

6. Methodology

7. Results
In short, not much
Donor Welfare significant at the 10% level

8. Results (Japan Omitted)

9. Conclusions & Next Steps
Collect more, better data
Consider developing countries
Thank you!