Using data from the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department, the authors examine the link between the performance of Bank-financed projects and various indicators of country governance. They find that: there is a strong statistical, and possibly casual, link between civil liberties and...

Using economic rates of return from World Bank-funded investments, we investigate how country characteristics and policies that influence aggregate performance affect investment productivity. Controlling for other characteristics, countries with undistorted (distorted) macroeconomic, exchange...

Using economic rates of return from more than 1,200 public and private sector projects implemented in 61 developing countries, the authors analyze determinants of investment productivity. Results from Tobit estimation demonstrate that the degree of countrywide policy distortions - macroeconomic,...

Recent empirical and theoretical literature sheds light on the disappointing experience with implementation of primary health care programs in developing countries. This article focuses on the evidence showing two weak links in the chain between government spending for services to improve health...

Data from 121 diverse rural water projects provide strong statistical findings that increasing beneficiary participation directly causes better project outcomes. Three possible econometric objections to these findings are addressed and answered. The subjective nature of the data does not...

As membership in traditional civic organizations declines in the United States (Putnam, 2000), could volunteering for nonprofit organizations be an alternative source of social capital formation? We use an updated household production framework (Becker, 1996) to theoretically connect...

Many oil, mineral, and plantation crop-based economies experienced a substantial deceleration of growth since the commodity boom and bust of the 1970s and early 1980s. Rodrik (1999) has demonstrated that the magnitude of a country's growth deceleration since the 1970s is a function of both the...

The chapters in this volume explore the challenges and opportunities raised by this concept for researchers, practitioners and teachers. Social Capital and Economic Development is based upon a consistent, policy-based vision of how social capital affects well-being in developing countries.

The chapters in this volume explore the challenges and opportunities raised by this concept for researchers, practitioners and teachers. Social Capital and Economic Development is based upon a consistent, policy-based vision of how social capital affects well-being in developing countries.