Sergio Tezanos Vázquez

Revisiting the Meaning of Development: A Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Many have challenged the use of income per capita as the primary proxy for measuring development since Seers’s seminal works. This article continues this tradition with a more recent twist. We use cluster analysis to build a multidimensional taxonomy of developing countries using a set of indicators covering four conceptual frames on ‘development’. The value-added of the article is not to suggest that our classification is the end in itself, but – more modestly – to demonstrate that more work on taxonomies is required in light of the weakness of classifications based solely on income and the changing distribution of global poverty.

Aiding Middle-income Countries? The Case of Spain

The geographical allocation of Spanish aid has been little studied, despite its unusual concentration on middle-income countries. This paper develops a theoretical model in which aid allocation depends on a combination of recipient needs, donor interests and performance criteria, and estimates it econometrically for Spain. The results show that the allocation of Spanish aid has been influenced both by Spains own foreign policy interests and by recipient needs for poverty reduction and development (although not by the quality of recipient governance or recipient absorptive capacity). Former Spanish colonies received a disproportionate share of Spains aid (as is true mutatis mutandis for other European countries), but aid is allocated among them with greater regard to recipient need than is Spains aid to other developing countries.The geographical allocation of Spanish aid has been little studied, despite its unusual concentration on middle-income countries. This paper develops a theoretical model in which aid allocation depends on a combination of recipient needs, donor interests and performance criteria, and estimates it econometrically for Spain. The results show that the allocation of Spanish aid has been influenced both by Spains own foreign policy interests and by recipient needs for poverty reduction and development (although not by the quality of recipient governance or recipient absorptive capacity). Former Spanish colonies received a disproportionate share of Spains aid (as is true mutatis mutandis for other European countries), but aid is allocated among them with greater regard to recipient need than is Spains aid to other developing countries.

Distributive Justice in Aid for Development

How should the aid financial burden be distributed across donor governments? This article discusses the “distributive justice” of the current aid-financing pattern, and advocates a progressive modality in which citizens from donor countries with higher living standards contribute proportionally more than citizens from countries with lower living standards. For this purpose, we conceive public foreign aid as a tax mechanism for redistributing income on a worldwide scale. The progressivity analysis for 45 bilateral donors (28 DAC countries and 17 non-DAC donors) using concentration curves and Suits indexes between 2000 and 2012 shows that the current distribution of the aid burden is insufficiently progressive (mainly due to the limited contributions of the richer donors). Finally, we argue that a progressive exaction scheme will improve the distributive justice of the aid system.

Del milenio a la sostenibilidad: retos y perspectivas de la Agenda 2030 para el desarrollo sostenible

El ascenso de los paises emergentes y los cambios en la geografia del desarrollo han supuesto importantes transformaciones en la agenda del desarrollo global. Siguen existiendo importantes asimetrias, y por tanto responsabilidades y capacidades diferenciadas para cada parte, pero es necesario aceptar el caracter cada vez mas global y transnacional de la agenda de desarrollo contemporanea, y la necesidad de una accion colectiva mas eficaz y legitima para hacerle frente. Este articulo analiza la transicion desde los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM) hasta la nueva Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS). Para ello se explican las logicas de orden politico y normativo en pugna en el surgimiento de la nueva agenda y la gobernanza del desarrollo global; se identifican los principales cambios de la Agenda 2030 y sus caracteristicas como normas multilaterales para el desarrollo global; y se analizan las potencialidades y riesgos que plantean los ODS para el sistema de cooperacion internacional.

How Has the Developing World Changed Since the Late 1990s? A Dynamic and Multidimensional Taxonomy of Developing Countries

Many existing classifications of developing countries are dominated by income per capita (such as the World Bank’s low, middle, and high income thresholds), thus neglecting the multidimensionality of the concept of ‘development’. Even those deemed to be the main ‘alternatives’ to the income-based classification have income per capita heavily weighted within a composite indicator. This paper provides an alternative perspective: clusters of developing countries. We take 4 ‘frames’ on the meaning of development: economic development, human development, better governance, and environmental sustainability. We then use a cluster procedure in order to build groups of countries that are to some extent internally ‘homogeneous’, but noticeably dissimilar to other groups. The advantage of this procedure is that it allows us identify the key development characteristics of each cluster of countries and where each country fits best. We then use this taxonomy to analyze how the developing world has since the late 1990s in terms of clusters of countries and the country groupings themselves.