IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notecp/15-02.html

Do Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers reduce poverty and improve well-being?

Author

Listed:
  • Meg Elkins
  • Simon Feeny
  • David Prentice

Abstract

With almost 15 years passing since their introduction, quantitative evaluations of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have been surprisingly sparse. This paper examines whether a PRSP impacts on poverty reduction and well-being and whether PRSP alignment to development paradigms impacts upon the achievement of these outcomes. Specifically, it estimates the causal effect of having a PRSP on various targets of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The sample is composed of a treatment group consisting of 51 developing countries undertaking PRSPs and 62 control countries determined through propensity score matching techniques, over the period 1999 to 2008. Results suggest that countries under PRSP treatment have achieved better well-being outcomes than those in the control group. PRSP alignment to different development paradigms is also shown to matter.

Suggested Citation

  • Meg Elkins & Simon Feeny & David Prentice, 2015. "Do Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers reduce poverty and improve well-being?," Discussion Papers 15/02, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notecp:15/02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/economics/documents/discussion-papers/sdp15-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:devpol:v:24:y:2006:i:5:p:499-511 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2011. "Getting Progress Right: Measuring Progress Towards the MDGs Against Historical Trends," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 87, Courant Research Centre PEG, revised 20 Feb 2012.
    3. Alfredo Saad-Filho, 2007. "Life beyond the Washington Consensus: An Introduction to Pro-poor Macroeconomic Policies," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 513-537.
    4. Sakiko Fukuda‐Parr, 2010. "Reducing Inequality – The Missing MDG: A Content Review of PRSPs and Bilateral Donor Policy Statements," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 26-35, January.
    5. Richard K. Crump & V. Joseph Hotz & Guido W. Imbens & Oscar A. Mitnik, 2009. "Dealing with limited overlap in estimation of average treatment effects," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 96(1), pages 187-199.
    6. Marangos, John, 2009. "What happened to the Washington Consensus? The evolution of international development policy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 197-208, January.
    7. Charles Kenny, Andy Sumner, 2011. "More Money or More Development: What Have the MDGs Achieved- Working Paper 278," Working Papers 278, Center for Global Development.
    8. Meg Elkins, 2014. "Embedding The Vulnerable Into The Millennium Development Goals: Social Protection In Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(6), pages 853-874, August.
    9. William S. Sessions, 1990. "Washington," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 57-59, July.
    10. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    11. Alexander Hijzen & Richard Upward & Peter W. Wright, 2010. "The Income Losses of Displaced Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(1).
    12. repec:bla:devpol:v:27:y:2009:i:4:p:355-371 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko & Greenstein, Joshua & Stewart, David, 2013. "How Should MDG Success and Failure be Judged: Faster Progress or Achieving the Targets?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 19-30.
    14. Williamson, John, 1993. "Democracy and the "Washington consensus"," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1329-1336, August.
    15. repec:qeh:qehwps:qehwps108 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Eggen, Andrea & Bezemer, Dirk J, 2007. "Do Poverty Reduction Strategies Help Achieve The Millennium Development Goals?," MPRA Paper 7030, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. repec:bla:devpol:v:23:y:2005:i:4:p:419-442 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Seung‐Hyun Hong, 2013. "Measuring The Effect Of Napster On Recorded Music Sales: Difference‐In‐Differences Estimates Under Compositional Changes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 297-324, March.
    19. David Hulme & James Scott, 2010. "The Political Economy of the MDGs: Retrospect and Prospect for the World's Biggest Promise," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 11010, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    20. Dani Rodrik, 2008. "Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 55(2), pages 135-156.
    21. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1999. "More instruments and broader goals: moving toward the Post-Washington Consensus," Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Center of Political Economy, vol. 19(1), pages 101-128.
    22. Stephen Machin & Sandra McNally & Costas Meghir, 2010. "Resources and Standards in Urban Schools," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(4), pages 365-393.
    23. Hijzen, Alexander & Martins, Pedro S. & Schank, Thorsten & Upward, Richard, 2013. "Foreign-owned firms around the world: A comparative analysis of wages and employment at the micro-level," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 170-188.
    24. Richard Marshall & Bernard Walters, 2011. "Evaluating ten years of ‘strategizing’ for poverty reduction: a cross-sectional appraisal of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) initiative," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 14311, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    25. Joel Lazarus, 2008. "Participation in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: reviewing the past, assessing the present and predicting the future," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 1205-1221.
    26. Benjamin Leo, 2010. "Who Are the MDG Trailblazers? A New MDG Progress Index," Working Papers id:2926, eSocialSciences.
    27. Fine, Ben, 2002. "Economics Imperialism and the New Development Economics as Kuhnian Paradigm Shift?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2057-2070, December.
    28. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, 2003. "The Human Development Paradigm: Operationalizing Sen'S Ideas On Capabilities," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2-3), pages 301-317.
    29. Benjamin Leo and Julia Barmeier, 2010. "Who Are the MDG Trailblazers? A New MDG Progress Index - Working Paper 222," Working Papers 222, Center for Global Development.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jacob, Arun, 2017. "Mind the Gap: Analyzing the Impact of Data Gap in Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs) Indicators on the Progress toward MDGs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 260-278.
    2. Ashma Vaidya & Audrey L. Mayer, 2016. "Critical Review of the Millennium Project in Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-23, October.
    3. Alshyab, Nooh, 2013. "The Political Economy of Reform and Development of the Washington Consensus," MPRA Paper 46014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Martin Huber, 2019. "An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation," Papers 1910.00641, arXiv.org.
    5. Gauri, Varun, 2012. "MDGs that nudge : the Millennium Development Goals, popular mobilization, and the post-2015 development framework," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6282, The World Bank.
    6. Go, Delfin S. & Quijada, Jose Alejandro, 2011. "Assessing the odds of achieving the MDGs," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5825, The World Bank.
    7. Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko & Greenstein, Joshua & Stewart, David, 2013. "How Should MDG Success and Failure be Judged: Faster Progress or Achieving the Targets?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 19-30.
    8. Gore, Charles, 2000. "The Rise and Fall of the Washington Consensus as a Paradigm for Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 789-804, May.
    9. Declan French, 2016. "Did the Millennium Development Goals Change Trends in Child Mortality?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1312-1325, October.
    10. Takahashi, Ryo, 2021. "How to stimulate environmentally friendly consumption: Evidence from a nationwide social experiment in Japan to promote eco-friendly coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    11. Marco Caliendo & Stefan Tübbicke, 2020. "New evidence on long-term effects of start-up subsidies: matching estimates and their robustness," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1605-1631, October.
    12. Caloffi, Annalisa & Freo, Marzia & Ghinoi, Stefano & Mariani, Marco & Rossi, Federica, 2022. "Assessing the effects of a deliberate policy mix: The case of technology and innovation advisory services and innovation vouchers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(6).
    13. Li Liang & Greene Tom, 2013. "A Weighting Analogue to Pair Matching in Propensity Score Analysis," The International Journal of Biostatistics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 215-234, July.
    14. Benjamin Lu & Eli Ben-Michael & Avi Feller & Luke Miratrix, 2023. "Is It Who You Are or Where You Are? Accounting for Compositional Differences in Cross-Site Treatment Effect Variation," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 48(4), pages 420-453, August.
    15. Martin Huber, 2010. "Identification of average treatment effects in social experiments under different forms of attrition," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2010 2010-22, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    16. Christoph Rothe, 2017. "Robust Confidence Intervals for Average Treatment Effects Under Limited Overlap," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 645-660, March.
    17. Dana Rotz & Brian Goesling & Molly Crofton & Jennifer Manlove & Kate Welti, "undated". "Final Impacts of Teen PEP (Teen Prevention Education Program) in New Jersey and North Carolina High Schools," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 40fc2bb74d874e59a8e424638, Mathematica Policy Research.
    18. Soonwoo Kwon & Liyang Sun, 2025. "Estimating Treatment Effects Under Bounded Heterogeneity," Papers 2510.05454, arXiv.org.
    19. Nicolas R. Ziebarth & Martin Karlsson, 2014. "The Effects Of Expanding The Generosity Of The Statutory Sickness Insurance System," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 208-230, March.
    20. Tymon Słoczyński, 2015. "The Oaxaca–Blinder Unexplained Component as a Treatment Effects Estimator," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 77(4), pages 588-604, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:not:notecp:15/02. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/denotuk.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.