Does the World Bank have a micro-macro paradox or do the data deceive?

Stephen Howes (), Sabit Amum Otor and Cate Rogers
Additional contact information
Cate Rogers: Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University

Development Policy Centre Discussion Papers from Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: In 1986, Mosely first drew attention to an apparent paradox in the performance of international aid. Microeconomic data from evaluations of aid financed projects showed a majority of projects were successful, whereas macroeconomic data from regressions of aid on growth were discouraging. The paradox, if real, implied that the aggregate impact of aid was less the sum of its parts. Mosely asked whether the paradox was real of whether the “data deceived.” This question, which has come to be equated with the issue of whether aid works, has been the subject of numerous cross-country regressions to test whether aid has an impact on growth (or related variables). But the regression results have been inconclusive, and the methodology has come under attack. Evidence from case studies offers an alternative test. One prominent case study approach is that of Picciotto (2009), which claims to find strong evidence for the existence of the paradox, namely the fact that one third of World Bank country assistance program evaluations show success at the project (micro) level but not at the country (macro) level. This paper re-evaluates Piciotto’s claimed findings.

Keywords: aid; aid effectiveness; world bank (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O12 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://devpolicy.anu.edu.au/pdf/papers/DP_5_-_Does ... ro-macro_paradox.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:devpol:1105

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Development Policy Centre Discussion Papers from Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Macarena Rojas ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).