Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are increasingly recipients in the foreign aid budgets of donors. What explains the emergence of IGOs as recipients of foreign aid? While conventional wisdom suggests that foreign aid is primarily a foreign policy tool used by donor countries, I argue that aid allocated to IGOs is not explained through the lens of donor interests. Rather, it is the independent institutional design of the IGO aid recipient that makes them attractive recipients of aid which is intended to promote economic development, not donor state interests. Thus, aid to IGO recipients is explained on the basis of recipient development need and the independent institutional design of the IGO. Using original data on European Union aid allocations to a specific type of IGO, the regional trade agreement (RTA), this paper demonstrates that RTAs with more independent institutional designs and greater economic and/or trade need indeed receive more aid than their less independent, less needy peers. Further, these results hold even when controlling for donor interests and across multiple models/techniques. These results shed light on this emerging, new type of foreign aid recipient and argue for a need to re-evaluate the state-recipient focus of the aid allocation literature.

中文翻译：

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解释新的外援接受者：欧盟对区域贸易协定的援助，1995-2013

政府间组织（IGO）越来越多地成为捐助者外援预算的接受者。什么解释了政府间组织作为外援接受者的出现？虽然传统观点认为外援主要是捐助国使用的外交政策工具，但我认为分配给 IGO 的援助并没有从捐助者利益的角度来解释。相反，正是 IGO 援助接受者的独立制度设计使他们成为有吸引力的援助接受者，旨在促进经济发展，而不是捐助国的利益。因此，对 IGO 受援者的援助是根据受援者的发展需要和 IGO 的独立机构设计来解释的。使用欧盟对特定类型 IGO、区域贸易协定 (RTA) 的援助分配的原始数据，本文表明，具有更独立的制度设计和更大的经济和/或贸易需求的区域贸易协定确实比不那么独立、不那么需要帮助的同行获得更多的援助。此外，即使在控制捐助者利益和跨多种模型/技术时，这些结果仍然成立。这些结果揭示了这种新兴的新型外援接受者，并认为有必要重新评估援助分配文献的国家-接受者重点。