Dr Patrick Lown

Lown, Patrick, Simone Dietrich, and Hugh Ward. A Failure of Imagination: How cultural differences impede empathy and the flow of foreign aid.

Foreign aid does not necessarily flow to where the need is greatest. This could be because of strategic interests of donor countries or inefficiencies associated with the implementation of foreign aid in recipient countries. It may also be, in part, due to failure of the ‘moral imagination’ of the pivotal voter in donor countries: as social distance increases individuals find it harder to sympathize with others in need of foreign aid. Although citizens might recognize need, the knowledge about need may not translate into support for aid because emotions are not sufficiently stirred; and more likely to occur for people who are ideologically opposed to foreign aid. We investigate this question through macro- and micro-level analyses. In our country-level analyses of aid allocation we show that ‘social distance’ between donor and recipient countries influences levels of aid. Since this analysis cannot establish that the causal mechanism at work relates to sympathy we propose to test the individual-level implications of our theory through a survey experiment using British citizens. We find evidence for our thesis. The research contributes to our understanding of how foreign aid preferences are formed and whether they are malleable.

Newman, Benjamin and Patrick Lown. “Exposure to Economic Inequality and Belief in the American Dream: An Experimental Approach.”

Albertazzi, Andrea, Friederike Mengel and Patrick Lown. "The Impact of Inequality Exposure on Economic Attitudes and Behavior"