Motivation Models of Australia's Bilateral Aid Program: The Case of Indonesia*

This paper is concerned with the question: what motivates Australia's provision of overseas aid to Indonesia? The econometric results on time series data obtained by testing a recipient need and a donor interest model suggest both these concerns are relevant to Australian aid decisons on Indonesia To determine which model dominates, non-nested tests were conducted; these indicated acceptance of the recipient need model and rejection of the donor interest model. Thus Australia's aid to Indonesia was found to be determined by recipient need rather than donor interest.