We test the hypothesis that aid recipient governments are better able to utilize aid flows for political favoritism during periods in which they are of geo-strategic value to major donors. We examine the effect of a country's (non-permanent) membership on the United Nations Security Council...

This paper is about cronyism, or the arrangements by which influential firms receive economic favors. This phenomenon has been documented in numerous case studies, but rarely formalized or analyzed quantitatively. We offer a formal voting model in which cronyism is modeled as a contract where...

In this paper we analyse the impact of foreign aid on gender outcomes and attitudes. We do this by matching geocoded household surveys with aid projects. This offers a middle way between project evaluations and aggregated cross-country comparisons, measuring an average community effect around...

Large-scale antipoverty programs have achieved significant and positive results in many developing countries around the world in the past decade. This paper explores the challenges of scaling up small-scale antipoverty programs - taken here to mean the processes by which successful efforts to...

How do shifts in trade affect social protections for the poor? Although the fraction of the world's population considered the 'extreme' poor has fallen by over one-half over the past quarter century, many of those lifted above the global poverty line remain vulnerable to shocks that could place...

The implications of urban development for overall economic prosperity are well known. Employment, housing, policing, infrastructure and social policies in cities have been shaped and institutionalized through a complex set of interactions between various urban interests, public officials, and...

Front Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Information -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- The Need for Innovations to Implement the Sustainable Development Goals -- Part I: Capturing Value -- Expanding Women's Economic Opportunities -- From Green Bonds to Sustainable Development: The Case of...