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Evaluating Aid Impact

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  • White, Howard

Abstract

The ultimate measure of aid effectiveness is how aid ffects the lives of poor people in developing countries. The huge literature on aid’s macroeconomic impact has remarkably little to say on this topic, and less still in terms of practical advice to government officials and aid administrators on how to improve development effectiveness. But there is an expanding toolbox of approaches to impact evaluation at the field level which can answer both questions of whether aid works, and, properly applied, why it works (or not, as the case may be). This paper lays out these approaches, describing some of their uses by official development agencies. I advocate a theory based approach to impact evaluation design, as this is most likely to yield policy insights. Academics need to engage in these real world issues and debates if their work is to help alleviate the plight of the world’s poor.

Suggested Citation

  • White, Howard, 2007. "Evaluating Aid Impact," MPRA Paper 6716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:6716
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Shawn Cole & Esther Duflo & Leigh Linden, 2007. "Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1235-1264.
    2. Glewwe, Paul & Kremer, Michael & Moulin, Sylvie & Zitzewitz, Eric, 2004. "Retrospective vs. prospective analyses of school inputs: the case of flip charts in Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 251-268, June.
    3. Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2010. "Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 700-729, October.
    4. Davidson R. Gwatkin & Adam Wagstaff & Abdo S. Yazbeck, 2005. "Reaching the Poor with Health, Nutrition, and Population Services : What Works, What Doesn't, and Why," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7393.
    5. Laura B. Rawlings & Lynne Sherburne-Benz & Julie van Domelen, 2004. "Evaluating Social Funds : A Cross-Country Analysis of Community Investments," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15057.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy, 1999. "Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 533-575.
    7. White, Howard, 2007. "Evaluating Aid Impact," MPRA Paper 6716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Benjamin A. Olken, 2007. "Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(2), pages 200-249.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wamboye, Evelyn & Adekola, Abel, 2013. "Foreign Aid, Legal Origin, Economic Growth and Africa’s Least Developed Countries," MPRA Paper 47846, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Howard White, 2007. "Evaluating Aid Impact," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2007-75, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    aid effectiveness; impact evaluation; quasi-experimental design; results agenda;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O22 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Project Analysis
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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