Foreign aid payments have been a key policy response by Global North countries to reduce increased migration flows from the Global South. In this article, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between aid and international migration flows and estimate the contemporaneous effect of bilateral aid payments on bilateral, international migration flows. The fundamental problem in analyzing this relationship is endogeneity, or reverse causality. To address this issue and achieve causal inference, we use a shift-share, or Bartik, instrument. Examining migration flows between 198 origin countries and 16 OECD destination countries over 36 years (1980−2015), we find a positive relationship between aid and migration. A ten-percent increase in aid payments will increase migration by roughly 2 percent. We further document non-linearity in the relationship between aid and migration and find an inverted U-shaped relationship between aid and migration flows. The findings presented here have implications for the design of bilateral and multilateral aid policies and for achieving various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by stressing the importance of a better coordination between aid and immigration policies.

外国援助支付一直是全球北方国家减少来自全球南方的移民流动增加的一项关键政策反应。在本文中，我们为有关援助与国际移民流动之间关系的文献做出贡献，并估计双边援助支付对双边、国际移民流动的同期影响。分析这种关系的根本问题是内生性或反向因果关系。为了解决这个问题并实现因果推理，我们使用了一个 shift-share 或 Bartik 工具。通过 36 年（1980-2015 年）考察 198 个原籍国和 16 个经合组织目的地国之间的移民流动，我们发现援助与移民之间存在正相关关系。援助支付增加 10% 将使移民增加约 2%。我们进一步记录了援助与移民之间关系的非线性，并发现援助与移民流动之间存在倒 U 型关系。这里提出的研究结果通过强调援助和移民政策之间更好协调的重要性，对双边和多边援助政策的设计以及实现各种联合国可持续发展目标具有影响。