IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/econwp/qt2qk20435.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Long-Run Effects of Aid: Forecasts and Evidence from Sierra Leone

Author

Listed:
  • Casey, Katherine
  • Glennerster, Rachel
  • Miguel, Edward
  • Voors, Maarten

Abstract

We evaluate the long-run effects of a decentralised approach to economic development called community-driven development—a prominent strategy for delivering foreign aid—by revisiting a randomised community-driven development program in Sierra Leone 11 years after launch. We estimate large persistent gains in local public goods and market activity, and modest positive effects on institutions. There is suggestive evidence that community-driven development may have slightly improved the communities’ response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. We compare estimates to the forecasts of experts from Sierra Leone and abroad, working in policy and academia, and find that local policymakers are overly optimistic about the effectiveness of community-driven development.

Suggested Citation

  • Casey, Katherine & Glennerster, Rachel & Miguel, Edward & Voors, Maarten, 2023. "Long-Run Effects of Aid: Forecasts and Evidence from Sierra Leone," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2qk20435, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt2qk20435
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2qk20435.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bouguen, Adrien & Huang, Yue & Kremer, Michael & Miguel, Edward, 2018. "Using Rcts to Estimate Long-Run Impacts in Development Economics," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4sk6c4f7, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Yoav Benjamini & Abba M. Krieger & Daniel Yekutieli, 2006. "Adaptive linear step-up procedures that control the false discovery rate," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 93(3), pages 491-507, September.
    3. Katherine Casey & Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel, 2012. "Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on Aid Impacts Using a Preanalysis Plan," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1755-1812.
    4. Casey, Katherine, 2018. "Radical Decentralization: Does Community Driven Development Work?," Research Papers 3629, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:osf:osfxxx:rdjn9_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Patrick John Barron & Patricia Fernandes & Stephen Joseph Winkler & Michael Woolcock, 2024. "A Learning Agenda for Community-Driven Development : Responding to Complex Contextual, Evaluation, and Inference Challenges," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10883, The World Bank.
    3. Fiala, Nathan & Rose, Julian & Aryemo, Filder & Ankel-Peters, Jörg, 2025. "Timing matters: The (very) long-run impacts of cash grants during a crisis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kevin Grieco & Abou Bakarr Kamara & Niccolo F. Meriggi & Julian Michel & Prichard Wilson, 2025. "Participation, legitimacy and fiscal capacity in weak states: Evidence from participatory budgeting," CSAE Working Paper Series 2025-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    2. Garret Christensen & Edward Miguel, 2018. "Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 920-980, September.
    3. Berman, Eli & Callen, Michael & Gibson, Clark C. & Long, James D. & Rezaee, Arman, 2019. "Election fairness and government legitimacy in Afghanistan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 292-317.
    4. Katherine Casey & Rachel Glennerster & Edward Miguel & Maarten Voors, 2023. "Skill Versus Voice in Local Development," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 311-326, March.
    5. repec:osf:metaar:9a3rw_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Fafchamps, Marcel & Labonne, Julien, 2017. "Using Split Samples to Improve Inference on Causal Effects," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(4), pages 465-482, October.
    7. Michael Callen & Jonathan L. Weigel & Noam Yuchtman, 2024. "Experiments About Institutions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 16(1), pages 105-131, August.
    8. Jeffrey D. Michler & Anna Josephson, 2022. "Recent developments in inference: practicalities for applied economics," Chapters, in: A Modern Guide to Food Economics, chapter 11, pages 235-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. D. Layne Coppock & Lucas Crowley & Susan L. Durham & Dylan Groves & Julian C. Jamison & Dean Karlan & Brien E. Norton & R. Douglas Ramsey, 2021. "Cooperation in the Commons: Community-based Rangeland Management in Namibia," NBER Working Papers 29469, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Michael L. Anderson & Jeremy Magruder, 2017. "Split-Sample Strategies for Avoiding False Discoveries," NBER Working Papers 23544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kahsay, Goytom Abraha & Bulte, Erwin, 2021. "Internal versus top-down monitoring in community resource management: Experimental evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 111-131.
    12. Abay, Kibrom A. & Nigus, Halefom Yigzaw, 2024. "Cooperation among community leaders: The role of women’s leadership and exposure to conflict," IFPRI discussion papers 2273, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. Marcel Fafchamps & Julien Labonne, 2016. "Using Split Samples to Improve Inference about Causal Effects," NBER Working Papers 21842, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Dennis Egger & Johannes Haushofer & Edward Miguel & Paul Niehaus & Michael Walker, 2022. "General Equilibrium Effects of Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence From Kenya," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2603-2643, November.
    15. Madajewicz, Malgosia & Tompsett, Anna & Habib, Md. Ahasan, 2021. "How does delegating decisions to communities affect the provision and use of a public service? Evidence from a field experiment in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    16. Ksoll, Christopher & Lilleør, Helene Bie & Lønborg, Jonas Helth & Rasmussen, Ole Dahl, 2016. "Impact of Village Savings and Loan Associations: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 70-85.
    17. Marcel Fafchamps & Simon Quinn, 2018. "Networks and Manufacturing Firms in Africa: Results from a Randomized Field Experiment," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(3), pages 656-675.
    18. Patrick John Barron & Patricia Fernandes & Stephen Joseph Winkler & Michael Woolcock, 2024. "A Learning Agenda for Community-Driven Development : Responding to Complex Contextual, Evaluation, and Inference Challenges," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10883, The World Bank.
    19. Dan Levy, 2019. "Can Transparency and Accountability Programs Improve Health? Experimental Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania," CID Working Papers 352, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    20. Baldwin, Kate & Karlan, Dean & Udry, Christopher & Appiah, Ernest, 2023. "How political insiders lose out when international aid underperforms: Evidence from a participatory development experiment in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    21. Sawada, Yasuyuki & Aida, Takeshi & Griffen, Andrew S. & Kozuka, Eiji & Noguchi, Haruko & Todo, Yasuyuki, 2022. "Democratic institutions and social capital: Experimental evidence on school-based management from a developing country," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 267-279.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt2qk20435. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ibbrkus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.