The ultimate goal of Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) interventions is to improve health outcomes in low, and middle-income countries. However, impact assessment requires the development of systems for effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E). As a consequence, there is increasing...

Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- The World bank and public procurement : an independent evaluation -- Management response -- Chairperson's summary : committee on development effectiveness -- Contents of the full evaluation -- The text of both complete volumes of the evaluation and appendixes...

This paper shows that the increased policy-selectivity of aid allocations observed in recent years provides recipient countries an incentive to improve policies. The paper estimates that a change in the World Banks Country Policy and Institutional Assessment policy index from 1.5 to 2 for a...

This paper investigates the impact of World Bank development policy operations on the quality of economic policy during the period 1998-2015. A new theoretical framework distinguishes among three effects that have been conflated hitherto: (a) marginal impacts of additional policy actions within...

This paper compiles project-level data from the World Bank's lending history to describe patterns and the composition of its portfolio. The paper focuses particularly on the effect of countries' transition from International Development Association to International Bank for Reconstruction and...

An expanding body of literature has shown that better management practices can offer significant boosts to firms' productivity; this research illustrates that firms in South America are no exception. Using recent Enterprise Survey data from seven countries in South America (Argentina, Bolivia,...

Using a high-frequency mobile phone survey of food security conducted by the World Food Programme, this paper investigates how food assistance and access to food changed following the announcement of famine-like conditions in the Republic of Yemen. Among the mobile phone-using population, the...

This paper defines institutions, presents their basic characteristics, and discusses forces for institutional change. It draws on a wealth of research and study by scholars in different fields and follows from the flagship 2002 World Development Report on this topic, including relevant new...