Foreign aid allocation: Humanitarian needs and donor interests

This thesis examines if characteristics of a foreign nation's economic, social and foreign policy affect U.S. policy makers foreign aid allocation decisions. The three years of 1981, 1985, 1988 were studied. There were several theories that were taken form previous literature that could be grouped generally into humanitarian interests and donor interests that were used to determine the rationale behind the U.S. foreign aid allocation. There were two stages in the study, the first asked: what are the characteristics of nations most likely to receive aid from the U.S.? The second stage asked among nations receiving aid, which attributes--humanitarian interests or donor interests--are associated with greater amount of aid?