This thesis examines the effects of United States economic and United States military aid on the factors of human development, political stability, and rule of law on three regions of the world, the Middle East, South America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, through a series of ordinary least squares regressions utilizing lagged independent variables in order to indicate causality. In this manner, the thesis evaluates the success of US foreign aid in regards to these three aforementioned independent

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... iables. The results are compared and contrasted with previous studies, which came to varying conclusions regarding the effectiveness of aid. This thesis finds that US economic aid has both positive and negative, both significant and insignificant, effects upon human development, political stability, and these effects vary dynamically between the three regions, while not having any significant effects upon the rule of law. The thesis concludes by acknowledging both the positive and negative effects of US economic and military aid, and recommends a reevaluation of current US aid policy to right certain inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. iii