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...

In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach...

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1 Introduction: Can't Take It Anymore? -- 2 Making Aid Work -- 3 Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness -- 4 It Pays to Be Ignorant: A Simple Political Economy of Rigorous Program Evaluation -- 5 Solutions When the Solution Is the...

In the new millennium, the Western aid effort towards Africa has surged due to writings by well-known economists, a celebrity mass advocacy campaign, and decisions by Western leaders to make Africa a major foreign policy priority. This survey contrasts the predominant "transformational" approach...