The implementation of social policies is often hampered by the fact that local decision-makers may be unwilling or unable to implement the policy as intended by the central government. In contrast to research that focuses on incentivizing and holding local decision makers accountable, we examine...

Through the principle of country ownership including broad-based participation, Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) introduced by the World Bank and the IMF as a new condition for aid at the turn of the century have a non-negligible potential to promote democratization in developing countries. In...

Introduced in 1999, poverty reduction strategies (PRS) are currently the World Bank and IMF’s main instrument to regulate access to debt relief and concessional financing from both institutions. By replacing the former structural adjustment programs this new approach seeks to increase the...

Can process conditionality really enhance poverty reduction in developing countries? This question is addressed in the framework of a politico-economic model considering political distortions both on the recipient and on the donor side. It turns out that process conditionality is a very useful...

We analyze the interaction of climate and development policy that has taken place since the early 1990s. Increasing dissatisfaction about the results of traditional development cooperation and the appeal of climate policy as a new policy field led to a rapid reorientation of aid flows. At the...