Quasi-experimental research designs, like experimental designs, test causal hypotheses. Quasi-experimental designs identify a comparison group that is as similar as possible to the intervention group in terms of baseline (pre-intervention) characteristics. The comparison group captures what...

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is an experimental form of impact evaluation in which the population receiving the programme or policy intervention is chosen at random from the eligible population, and a control group is also chosen at random from the same eligible population. It tests the...

Indicators provide a signal to decision makers by indicating whether, and to what extent, a variable of interest has changed. They can be used at all levels of the results framework from inputs to impacts, and should be linked to the programme’s theory of change. Most important at the lower...

Impact evaluation provides a measure of aid effectiveness, that is how good development aid is at reducing poverty. Critics of aid argue that there have been few attempts to measure its impact. This may have been true in the past, but there is a growing body of literature on impact evaluation....

For a large sample of 61 developing countries, over the period 1980-95, we calculate a measure of the efficiency with which national political-economic systems convert a given volume of material resources (GNP per capita) into human development (longevity, education and literacy) for their...

Most countries of the world are reducing infant and child mortality too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goal of a two-thirds reduction by 2015. Yet, some countries and regions have achieved impressive reductions, Kerala in India being one example. This paper examines the determinants...