Economists use partial and general equilibrium trade simulation models to estimate the impact of changes in domestic policies and international trade rules. During the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations economists have produced many different estimates of the gains that would result...

It is widely believed that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has grossly fallen short of high expectations raised by the Bush administration in 2002. From the perspective of potential recipient countries, the crucial issue is whether the MCC increased the overall pool of aid resources...

This study evaluates the Philippines' absorptive performance for foreign aid, particularly during the six-year period 2003 to 2008, and compare this to that of the previous period, 1986 to 1988. We observe that the country's capacity to absorb foreign aid has declined during the period under...

The Paris declaration of 2005 on aid effectiveness is now part of the international consensus. It holds that increased use of budget support combined with decentralised aid administration will lead to transaction costs reductions (through better donor harmonisation of aid) and to enhanced local...

Donor agencies and recipient governments want to assess the effectiveness of aid-supported sector policies. Unfortunately, existing methods for impact evaluation are designed for the evaluation of homogeneous interventions (‘projects’) where those with and without ‘treatment’ can be...

There is a growing interest, notably in development economics, in extending project evaluation methods to the evaluation of multiple interventions (“programs”). In program evaluations one is interested in the aggregate impact of a program rather than the effect on individual beneficiaries....

There is a growing interest in extending project evaluation methods to the evaluation of programs: complex interventions involving multiple activities. In general a program evaluation cannot be based on separate evaluations of its components since interactions between the activities are likely...

This paper reviews what has been learned over many decades of foreign aid to education. It discusses what works and what does not and in this discussion draws attention to the fact that even a simple assessment requires more than providing a uniform check-list of inputs. It shows the positive...

A growing political science literature studies the significance of emerging powers as key players in development. However, these studies have almost all considered the phenomenon from the perspective of donors. This paper assesses how recipient governments respond to the rise of new donors,...