Who Represents the Recipient? UNGA Delegation Size, Political Composition, and Foreign Aid

Abstract How do recipients’ choices about representation in multilateral forums relate to bilateral aid allocation? This study examines delegation size and political composition at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), linking official rosters for 1993–2016 to subsequent aid commitments from 32 donors to 155 recipients. Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood models with donor–recipient and donor–year fixed effects distinguish the offices represented from total delegation headcount. Conditional on delegation size, political alignment, and trade, national-leader listing is associated with 18.2 percent higher expected commitments the following year. The positive association persists when exceptionally large commitments are capped, with an estimated magnitude of 8.1 percent.Average dollar contrasts are larger within established aid relationships, consistent with a role for high-level representation in ongoing financing discussions. Delegation size and other personnel measures have less precisely estimated associations with commitment amounts. Turning to donor participation, neither delegation size nor leader listing is clearly associated with more donors making commitments. By distinguishing delegation size from political composition, the study brings recipients’ choices about diplomatic representation into explanations of aid allocation alongside recipient needs and donor interests. JEL Classification: F35; F53; O19