This study examines the tensions between best-practice institutional benchmarks and local operational constraints in a developing country institution-building process. Drawing on data from document studies and key informant interviews, we investigate if and how staff capacity constraints affect...

Summary This study analyzes the persistence of poverty in both rural and urban areas in Ethiopia during 1994-2004. The key finding is that households move frequently in and out of poverty but the difficulty of exiting from poverty, like the chance of avoiding slipping back, increases with the...

This paper seeks to quantify the effects of improved donor coordination on aid effectiveness. Empirical estimates are first provided of the reductions in transaction costs that can be achieved by better donor coordination via concentration to fewer partner countries and a shift from project aid...

Summary China's gradual approach to economic transition has resulted in sustained high growth. However, in recent years Chinese economists have increasingly referred to the growth pattern as "extensive," generated mainly through the expansion of inputs. Our investigation of the Chinese economy...

Historical evidence from the industrialized world suggests that the expansion of the modern state’s capacity to tax eventually led to more democratic and less corrupt governments. Using a dataset that covers 31 sub-Saharan African countries over the 1990–2005 period, we study whether the...