Is generalized debt relief an effective development strategy, or should assistance be tailored to countries' characteristics? To answer this question, the authors build a simple model in which recipient governments reveal their creditworthiness if donors offer them to choose between aid and debt...

This paper adopts a new approach to the issue of foreign aid fungibility. In contrast to most existing empirical studies, panel data are employed that contain information on the specific purposes for which aid is given. This allows linking aid that is provided for education and health purposes...

Fragile and conflict-affected states face daunting challenges for development. Aid has a greater importance on development in these states than in others, and therefore aid effectiveness ?management and delivery of aid ? bears serious consideration. Despite its significance, aid effectiveness is...

Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to their husbands) benefits children. Does this observation imply that targeting transfers to women is good economic policy? The authors develop a series of noncooperative family bargaining models to understand what kind...

This paper adds to aid volatility literature in three ways: First it tests the validity of the aid volatility and growth relationship from various aspects: across different time horizons, by sources of aid, and by aid volatility interactions with country characteristics. Second, it investigates...

The authors assess the effect of economic instability on the success of projects funded by the World Bank using the outcome of the projects, which is a notation of their overall success determined by the Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. It has been argued in macroeconomic studies that aid...

There are significant weaknesses in some of the traditional justifications for assuming that aid will foster development. This paper looks at what the cross-country aid effectiveness literature and World Bank Operations Evaluation Department reviews have suggested about effective aid, first in...

This paper examines the correlates of success of development policy lending operations of the World Bank between 2004 and 2012. The paper uses a data set constructed of individual loan characteristics and ex-post loan ratings produced by the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group. Departing...

Does research add value to aid? Specifically, does impact evaluation research help or hinder the delivery of development projects? This paper analyzes the question by constructing a new data set of 100 impact evaluations and 1,135 projects approved by the World Bank between 2005 and 2011. The...

Cash transfers have been demonstrated to improve education and health outcomes and alleviate poverty in various contexts. However, policy makers and others often express concern that poor households will use transfers to buy alcohol, tobacco, or other "temptation goods." The income effect of...