Impact Evaluation in International Development : Theory, Methods and Practice: World Bank Books Deal With With Deals With Issues Such As Economics Society, Trade, Taxes, Climate And Gender

by World Bank Group

Impact evaluations are studies that attempt to measure the causal impact of a project, program, or policy on one or more outcomes. This book provides a comprehensive exposition of how to conduct impact evaluations. Part I provides an overview of impact evaluations and comprises five chapters which are accessible to readers who have few or none of the technical (statistical and econometric) skills that are needed to conduct impact evaluations. Parts II and III make use of statistical and econometric methods and are at a level similar to a graduate-student course but written to make them accessible to the ambitious reader whose skills are not at that level. Part II presents, in Chapters 6-10, a comprehensive discussion of the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to conduct impact evaluations, including a general discussion of the ethical issues involved in conducting impact evaluations. Part III presents the main nonexperimental methods that are used to implement impact evaluations when RCTs are not feasible or not recommended for other reasons. Chapters 11 and 12 present regression methods, including difference-in-differences estimation. Matching methods are described in Chapter 13, after which regression discontinuity methods are covered in Chapter 14. Instrumental variable methods, including the estimation of local average treatment effects (LATE), are discussed in detail in Chapter 15. Chapters 16 and 17 cover more advanced quantile treatment effects and control function methods, respectively. Part IV then considers more practical issues when conducting impact evaluations, including designing questionnaires (Chapter 18), data collection methods and survey management (Chapters 19 and 20), and disseminating results to policymakers (Chapter 21). Finally, Part V addresses two topics in impact qualitative methods for conducting impact evaluations (Chapter 22), and cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis (Chapter 23).

420 pages, Paperback

Published March 23, 2022

About the author

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and most famous development bank in the world and is an observer at the United Nations Development Group. The bank is based in Washington, D.C. and provided around $61 billion in loans and assistance to "developing" and transition countries in the 2014 fiscal year. The bank's stated mission is to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and building shared prosperity. Its five organizations are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

The World Bank's (the IBRD and IDA's) activities are focused on developing countries, in fields such as human development (e.g. education, health), agriculture and rural development (e.g. irrigation and rural services), environmental protection (e.g. pollution reduction, establishing and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (e.g. roads, urban regeneration, and electricity), large industrial construction projects, and governance (e.g. anti-corruption, legal institutions development). The IBRD and IDA provide loans at preferential rates to member countries, as well as grants to the poorest countries. Loans or grants for specific projects are often linked to wider policy changes in the sector or the country's economy as a whole. For example, a loan to improve coastal environmental management may be linked to development of new environmental institutions at national and local levels and the implementation of new regulations to limit pollution, or not, such as in the World Bank financed constructions of paper mills along the Rio Uruguay in 2006.