This paper considers how the conditionality inherent in HIPC debt relief should be constituted to promote pro-poor policies. There are two dimensions to this. First, the extent to which the policies proposed are pro-poor. Second, the potential for releasing resources for pro-poor expenditures....

Our objective is to test the hypothesis that ai d can improve the welfare of the poor. Part of this effect is direct, if aid is targeted on the poor, and part is indirect, via the transmission channel of aid-financed public spending on social services - sanitation, education and health. This...

Introduction: Can't take it anymore? / William Easterly -- I: The power of scientific evaluation--and why isn't it done more often? -- Making aid work / Abhijit Banerjee and Ruimin He -- Use of randomization in the evaluation of development effectiveness / Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer -- It...

Those involved in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) campaign routinely state Africa will miss all the MDGs. This paper argues that a series of arbitrary choices made in defining success or failure as achieving numerical targets for the Millennium Development Goals made attainment of the MDGs...

Those involved in the millennium development goal (MDG) campaign routinely state ‘‘Africa will miss all the MDGs.” This paper argues that a series of arbitrary choices made in defining ‘‘success” or ‘‘failure” as achieving numerical targets for the MDGs made attainment of the...