This paper evaluates the effect of development project aid from the World Bank and China on firms' sales growth, using a large dataset of 110864 firms spanning 121 countries between 2001 and 2016. We find that, contrary to the World Bank, Chinese ODA projects increase, on average, firm sales...

Traffic congestion increases travel time and is a major source of pollution and health damage in developing-country cities. Data scarcity frequently confines traffic improvement projects to sites where congestion can be easily measured. This article uses spatiotemporal data from new global...

This Note aims to provide a step-by-step guide for the World Bank (the Bank hereafter) teams to identify and support opportunities for community participation across various types of slum upgrading. The Note is prompted by a recent engagement of the Bank with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through...

Purpose; The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of community-based and driven approaches during the lockdowns and early periods of the pandemic. The study examines the impact and perceptions of the state-led intervention. This would help to discover a better approach for...

In this editorial introduction to the Special Issue "Rural aspirations—Livelihood decisions and rural development trajectories", we outline current views on aspirations and their relevance for development research, projects and approaches. Using several examples from Africa, we outline how the...

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has profound socio-economic consequences. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, so this paper focuses on radical changes to accepted practice in project organizing in response. In particular, we focus on schedule compression to deliver outputs to...

The identification of key determinants of aid effectiveness is a long-standing question in the development community. This paper reviews the literature on aid effectiveness at the project level and then extends the inquiry in a variety of dimensions with new data on World Bank investment project...