Chinese aid and social ties in Africa: Evidence from sub-national aid projects

Figures & data

Figure A1. In this figure, the red triangles represent the location of Chinese aid projects. The green dots are location of afrobarometer respondents. Overall, the figure provides the distribution of Chinese projects around Afrobarometer clusters.

Table B1. Summary statistics

VARIABLES	Mean	SD	Min	Max
Dependent variables
Trust relatives	2.366	0.900	0	3
Trust neighbours	1.767	1.007	0	3
Generalized trust	0.186	0.389	0	1
Community Meeting Attendance	2.100	1.332	0	4
Membership in Community in DA	0.618	0.931	0	3
Subjective Well being (SWB)	2.677	1.188	1	5
Control variables
Institutional Trust Index	8.016	4.106	0	15
Corruption Index	0.701	1.368	0	6
Democratic quality index	2.467	1.047	0	4
Public Goods index	3.221	1.727	0	6
Political repression index	1.835	1.094	0	3
Perceptions of inequality	0.332	0.471	0	1
Religious Membership Index	0.974	0.984	0	3
Age	36.89	14.51	18	130
Age Squared	15.71	12.92	3.240	169
Urban Dummy	0.402	0.490	0	1
Male Dummy	0.499	0.500	0	1
Education Levels	3.276	2.128	0	9
Employment status	1.350	1.380	0	5
Chinese aid projects within different Kilometers
$AC{P}_{50i}$	0.274	0.446	0	1
$CC{P}_{50i}$	0.0458	0.209	0	1
$AC{P}_{75i}$	0.367	0.482	0	1
$CC{P}_{75i}$	0.0592	0.236	0	1
$AC{P}_{100i}$	0.426	0.495	0	1
$CC{P}_{100i}$	0.0674	0.251	0	1
$AC{P}_{200i}$	0.632	0.482	0	1
$CC{P}_{200i}$	0.0874	0.282	0	1

Table B2. Chinese aid and trust : DID estimates

Variables	(1)Generalized Trust	(2)Trust Neighbours	(3)Trust relatives
$AC{P}_{50i}-CC{P}_{50i}$ $({\gamma }_1-{\gamma }_2)$	−0.0402***	−0.0151	0.00316
$AC{P}_{50i}$	−0.031***	−0.107***	−0.069***
	(0.008)	(0.020)	(0.017)
$CC{P}_{50i}$	0.009	−0.092***	−0.072***
	(0.015)	(0.033)	(0.025)
Observations	27,425	27,787	37,324
R-squared	0.093	0.198	0.152
controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Country FE	Yes	Yes	Yes

Notes: The controls include respondent’s individual’s age, age squared, gender (a male dummy), place of residence (an urban dummy), levels of education, employment status, perceived inequality, index of active religious membership, an index of public goods, an indicator of political repression, an index of institutional trust, and index of corruption incidence and an index of democratic quality. ACP/CCP denotes active/planned Chinese project. Standard errors are clustered at the Afrobarometer survey cluster level. *** p$<$0.01, ** p$<$0.05, * p$<$0.1.

Table B3. Chinese aid and trust : Robustness

Variables	(1)Generalized Trust	(2)Generalized Trust	(3)Generalized Trust
$AC{P}_{Di}-CC{P}_{Di}$ $({\gamma }_1-{\gamma }_2)$	−0.0381***	−0.0258**	0.00415
$AC{P}_{75i}$	−0.031***
	(0.007)
$CC{P}_{75i}$	0.007
	(0.013)
$AC{P}_{100i}$		−0.043***
		(0.007)
$CC{P}_{100i}$		−0.018
		(0.013)
$AC{P}_{200i}$			−0.045***
			(0.008)
$CC{P}_{200i}$			−0.049***
			(0.013)
Observations	30,902	30,666	30,681
R-squared	0.092	0.095	0.097
controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Country FE	Yes	Yes	Yes

Notes: The controls include respondent’s individual’s age, age squared, gender (a male dummy), place of residence (an urban dummy), levels of education, employment status, perceived inequality, index of active religious membership, an index of public goods, an indicator of political repression, an index of institutional trust, and index of corruption incidence and an index of democratic quality. ACP/CCP denotes active/planned Chinese project. Standard errors are clustered at the Afrobarometer survey cluster level *** p$<$0.01, ** p$<$0.05, * p$<$0.1.

Table B4. The mechanisms

VARIABLES	(1)Community Meeting	(2)Volunteerism	(3)Subjective Wellbeing (SWB)
$AC{P}_{50i}-CC{P}_{50i}$	−0.0653**	−0.0471**	−0.0393
$AC{P}_{50i}$	−0.176***	−0.113***	−0.030**
	(0.016)	(0.011)	(0.015)
$CC{P}_{50i}$	−0.111***	−0.066***	0.009
	(0.030)	(0.020)	(0.032)
Observations	91,795	91,696	91,798
R-squared	0.222	0.185	0.137
controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
Country FE	Yes	Yes	Yes

Notes: The controls include respondent’s individual’s age, age squared, gender (a male dummy), place of residence (an urban dummy), levels of education, employment status, perceived inequality, index of active religious membership, an index of public goods, an indicator of political repression, an index of institutional trust, and an index of corruption incidence and an index of democratic quality. ACP/CCP denotes active/planned Chinese project. Standard errors are clustered at the Afrobarometer survey cluster level. *** p$<$0.01, ** p$<$0.05.

Table B5. Estimates for World Bank aid

VARIABLES	(1)Trust	(2)Community Meet.	(3)Volunteerism	(4)SWB
$AW{P}_{50i}$	−0.015	−0.026	−0.009	−0.016
	(0.011)	(0.020)	(0.014)	(0.018)
$CW{P}_{50i}$	−0.018	0.088***	0.045*	−0.058*
	(0.014)	(0.033)	(0.024)	(0.035)
$AW{P}_{50i}-CW{P}_{50i}$	0.00245	−0.114***	−0.0538***	0.0420
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Country FE	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Notes: The controls include respondent’s individual’s age, age squared, gender (a male dummy), place of residence (an urban dummy), levels of education, employment status, perceived inequality, index of active religious membership, an index of public goods, an indicator of political repression, an index of institutional trust, and index of corruption incidence and an index of democratic quality. AWP/CWP denotes active/planned World Bank project. Standard errors are clustered at the Afrobarometer survey cluster level. *** p$<$0.01, ** p$<$0.05, * p$<$0.1.