ABSTRACT
This chapter unpacks the notion of recipient salience. It is organized around four empirical questions. The first question explores whether any of the six components of recipient salience yield disproportionate leverage for the recipient. It finds that only one of the components is statistically significant. The second question compares four aggregation rules used to determine the composite indices of recipient salience. It finds the default aggregation rule to be more useful. The third question asks whether economic or strategic determinants of salience yield more leverage for the recipient. It finds the economic attribute set to be statistically significant. The fourth question investigates whether such significance is due to the Cold War. It finds that neither the strategic nor economic attribute sets had a statistically significant marginal effect during the Cold War. After the Cold War, only the economic attribute set has a marginal effect that is statistically significant. Due to the absence of theoretical accounts for the economic attribute set, the chapter concludes in favour of the default aggregation rule.
