U.S. Foreign Aid and Human Rights in Assorted Years

A data set on economic aid allocation by the United States for assorted years. These are useful for illustrative cross-sectional relationships between human rights and U.S. aid allocation at what amounts to midway points for various presidential administrations.

Usage

USFAHR

Format

A data frame with 1654 observations on the following 18 variables.

country

an English country name

ccode

a Correlates of War state code

region

a region in which the country resides, per Greenbook

year

a year

nomoblig

economic aid obligations in nominal U.S. dollars

constoblig

economic aid obligations in costant 2019 U.S. dollars

clphy

a physical violence index, bound between 0 and 1

civlib

a civil liberties index, bound between 0 and 1

fpsusa

foreign policy similarity with the United States

fpsrus

foreign policy similarity with the Soviet Union/Russia

mindistusa

minimum distance of the country from the United States

mindistrus

minimum distance of the country from the USSR/Russia

gdp

an estimate of GDP in constant 2011 U.S. dollars

pop

an estimate of population size

usaimp

a value of how much the U.S. imports from the country (in thousands USD)

usaexp

a value of how much the U.S. exports to the country (in thousands USD)

milex

an estimate of military expenditures (in thousands USD)

cinc

a composite index of national capabilities

Details

Matching is done on Correlates of War state codes. Thus, the exact "population" is an amalgam of U.S. aid and Correlates of War state system membership. Regions are offered, as is, from USAID Data Services.

Data on aid are "obligations" and not "disbursements", and thus may better reflect donor intent. These come from US Overseas Loans & Grants ("Greenbook") and were prepared by USAID Data Services on July 14, 2021.

Greenbook only offers information about dollar amounts of aid, contingent on receiving aid. Observations were added, based on Correlates of War state system membership, about countries that could've received aid but did not. Countries that never received aid at all had to have regions assigned to them ex post. I don't think the regions imputed for these observations are problematic. This concerns Andorra, Czechoslovakia, Dominica, German Democratic Republic, German Federal Republic, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Nauru, Republic of Vietnam, San Marino, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Switzerland, Tuvalu, Yemen Arab Republic, Yemen People's Republic, and Zanzibar.

Higher values of the physical violence index and civil liberties index communicate better human rights records. Data are lagged a year.

Foreign policy similarity is Cohen's (1960) kappa based on valued United Nations General Assembly voting. Data come from Haege (2011) by way of peacesciencer's add_fpsim() function. Please read peacesciencer documentation for more information about these measures, along with what you should cite for any serious use of these data.

Minimum distance is calculated using the Vincenty method ("as the crow flies"). Measurement is in kilometers and data come from peacesciencer and its add_minimum_distance() function. Check package documentation for appropriate citation for any serious use.

Estimates of gross domestic product ("GDP") and population come by way of peacesciencer and its add_sdp_gdp() function. Check package documentation for appropriate citations for any serious use. GDP is in actual dollars.

Trade data come from Correlates of War trade data by way of peacesciencer and its add_cow_trade() function. Check package documentation for appropriate citations for any serious use.

Military expenditure and capabilities data come from Correlates of War by way of peacesciencer and its add_cow_trade() function. Check package documentation for appropriate citations for any serious use.