[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0218671.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Putting your money where your mouth is: Geographic targeting of World Bank projects to the bottom 40 percent

Author

Listed:
  • Hannes Öhler
  • Mario Negre
  • Lodewijk Smets
  • Renzo Massari
  • Željko Bogetić
Abstract
The adoption of the shared prosperity goal by the World Bank in 2013 and Sustainable Development Goal 10, on inequality, by the United Nations in 2015 should strengthen the focus of development interventions and cooperation on the income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. This paper contributes to the incipient literature on within-country allocations of development institutions and assesses the geographic targeting of World Bank projects to the bottom 40 percent. Bivariate correlations between the allocation of project funding approved over 2005–14 and the geographical distribution of the bottom 40 as measured by survey income or consumption data are complemented by regressions with population and other potential factors affecting the within-country allocations as controls. The correlation analysis shows that, of the 58 countries in the sample, 41 exhibit a positive correlation between the shares of the bottom 40 and World Bank funding, and, in almost half of these, the correlation is above 0.5. Slightly more than a quarter of the countries, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, exhibit a negative correlation. The regression analysis shows that, once one controls for population, the correlation between the bottom 40 and World Bank funding switches sign and becomes significant and negative on average. This is entirely driven by Sub-Saharan Africa and not observed in the other regions. Hence, the significant and positive correlation in the estimations without controlling for population suggests that World Bank project funding is concentrated in administrative areas in which more people live (including the bottom 40) rather than in poorer administrative areas. Furthermore, capital cities receive disproportionally high shares of World Bank funding on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannes Öhler & Mario Negre & Lodewijk Smets & Renzo Massari & Željko Bogetić, 2019. "Putting your money where your mouth is: Geographic targeting of World Bank projects to the bottom 40 percent," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0218671
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0218671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218671
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218671&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0218671?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dean Karlan & Bram Thuysbaert, 2019. "Targeting Ultra-Poor Households in Honduras and Peru," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 63-94.
    2. Fujii, Tomoki, 2008. "How Well Can We Target Aid with Rapidly Collected Data? Empirical Results for Poverty Mapping from Cambodia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1830-1842, October.
    3. Nicolas Van de Sijpe, 2013. "Is Foreign Aid Fungible? Evidence from the Education and Health Sectors," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(2), pages 320-356.
    4. Pack, Howard & Pack, Janet Rothenberg, 1993. "Foreign Aid and the Question of Fungibility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(2), pages 258-265, May.
    5. Ryan Engstrom & Jonathan Hersh & David Newhouse, 2022. "Poverty from Space: Using High Resolution Satellite Imagery for Estimating Economic Well-being," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 382-412.
    6. Tonny Odokonyero & Robert Marty & Tony Muhumuza & Alex T. Ijjo & Godfrey Owot Moses, 2018. "The impact of aid on health outcomes in Uganda," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 733-745, April.
    7. Briggs, Ryan C., 2017. "Does Foreign Aid Target the Poorest?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 187-206, January.
    8. Carter, Patrick, 2014. "Aid allocation rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 132-151.
    9. Ospina, Raydonal & Ferrari, Silvia L.P., 2012. "A general class of zero-or-one inflated beta regression models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1609-1623.
    10. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2019. "African leaders and the geography of China's foreign assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 44-71.
    11. Hannes Öhler & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2014. "Needs-Based Targeting or Favoritism? The Regional Allocation of Multilateral Aid within Recipient Countries," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 420-446, August.
    12. Elbers, Chris & Fujii, Tomoki & Lanjouw, Peter & Ozler, Berk & Yin, Wesley, 2007. "Poverty alleviation through geographic targeting: How much does disaggregation help?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 198-213, May.
    13. Briggs, Ryan C., 2018. "Poor targeting: A gridded spatial analysis of the degree to which aid reaches the poor in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 133-148.
    14. Papke, Leslie E & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M, 1996. "Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 619-632, Nov.-Dec..
    15. Feyzioglu, Tarhan & Swaroop, Vinaya & Zhu, Min, 1998. "A Panel Data Analysis of the Fungibility of Foreign Aid," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(1), pages 29-58, January.
    16. Lakner,Christoph & Negre Rossignoli,Mario & Prydz,Espen Beer & Lakner,Christoph & Negre Rossignoli,Mario & Prydz,Espen Beer, 2014. "Twinning the goals : how can promoting shared prosperity help to reduce global poverty ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7106, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Kunze, Sven & Strobl, Eric, 2020. "Distortions in aid allocation of United Nations flash appeals: Evidence from the 2015 Nepal earthquake," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    2. Jung, Woojin, 2023. "Mapping community development aid: Spatial analysis in Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    3. Gehring, Kai & Kaplan, Lennart C. & Wong, Melvin H.L., 2022. "China and the World Bank—How contrasting development approaches affect the stability of African states," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    4. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Li, Xiao & Zhuang, Yuhang & Li, Ningning, 2022. "World Bank aid and local multidimensional poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    5. Lee, Heerae & Shon, Huijoo, 2024. "Spatial and temporal patterns of energy aid and poverty in four African countries: Focusing on distributive and recognition justice," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    6. Samuel Lordemus, 2022. "Does Aid for Malaria Increase with Exposure to Malaria Risk? Evidence from Mining Sites in the D.R.Congo," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(4), pages 719-748, August.
    7. Harris, J. Andrew & Posner, Daniel N., 2022. "Does decentralization encourage pro-poor targeting? Evidence from Kenya’s constituencies development fund," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    8. Negre, Mario, 2021. "Assessing potential effects of development cooperation on inequality," Briefing Papers 4/2021, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    9. Archibong, Belinda & Annan, Francis & Ekhator-Mobayode, Uche, 2023. "The epidemic effect: Epidemics, institutions and human capital development," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 549-566.
    10. BenYishay, Ariel & DiLorenzo, Matthew & Dolan, Carrie, 2022. "The economic efficiency of aid targeting," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    11. Dreher, Axel & Lang, Valentin & Reinsberg, Bernhard, 2024. "Aid effectiveness and donor motives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    12. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Zhuang, Yuhang & Ding, Yibing & Liu, Ziwei, 2023. "Infrastructure and poverty reduction: Assessing the dynamic impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Matthieu Boussichas & Tancrede Voituriez & Julie Vaillé, 2019. "Tackling inequalities and vulnerabilities: Why and how G7 development policies could do better," Working Papers hal-02288094, HAL.
    14. Ryan C. Briggs, 2020. "Results from single-donor analyses of project aid success seem to generalize pretty well across donors," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 947-963, October.
    15. Hanna Dudek & Wiesław Szczesny, 2021. "Multidimensional material deprivation in Poland: a focus on changes in 2015–2017," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 741-763, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dreher, Axel & Lang, Valentin & Reinsberg, Bernhard, 2024. "Aid effectiveness and donor motives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Jung, Woojin, 2023. "Mapping community development aid: Spatial analysis in Myanmar," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    3. Langlotz, Sarah & Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Does development aid increase military expenditure?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 735-757.
    4. Joseph L. Dieleman & Michael Hanlon, 2014. "Measuring The Displacement And Replacement Of Government Health Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 129-140, February.
    5. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Zhuang, Yuhang & Ding, Yibing & Liu, Ziwei, 2023. "Infrastructure and poverty reduction: Assessing the dynamic impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    6. Raphael J. Nawrotzki & Verena Gantner & Jana Balzer & Thomas Wencker & Sabine Brüntrup-Seidemann, 2022. "Strategic Allocation of Development Projects in Post-Conflict Regions: A Gender Perspective for Colombia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-26, February.
    7. Patrick Guillaumont & Laurent Wagner, 2014. "Aid Effectiveness for Poverty Reduction: Lessons from Cross‑country Analyses, with a Special Focus on Vulnerable Countries," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 22(HS01), pages 217-261.
    8. Mogge, Lukas & McDonald, Morag & Knoth, Christian & Teickner, Henning & Purevtseren, Myagmartseren & Pebesma, Edzer & Kraehnert, Kati, 2023. "Allocation of humanitarian aid after a weather disaster," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    9. Elisabeth Lio Rosvold, 2020. "Disaggregated determinants of aid: Development aid projects in the Philippines," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(6), pages 783-803, November.
    10. Eger, Jens & Öhler, Hannes & Rudolph, Alexandra, 2018. "Is the sectoral aid allocation within countries need-oriented?," IDOS Discussion Papers 17/2018, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    11. Lukasz Marc, 2012. "New Evidence on Fungibility at the Aggregate Level," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-083/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Chapel, Capucine, 2022. "Impact of official development assistance projects for renewable energy on electrification in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    13. Seim, Brigitte & Jablonski, Ryan & Ahlbäck, Johan, 2020. "How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    14. Łukasz Marć, 2015. "The impact of aid on total government expenditures: New evidence on fungibility," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Seim, Brigitte & Jablonski, Ryan S. & Ahlback, Johan, 2020. "How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions: evidence from a field experiment in Malawi," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105255, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Łukasz Marć, 2017. "The Impact of Aid on Total Government Expenditures: New Evidence on Fungibility," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 627-663, August.
    17. Dipendra, K.C., 2020. "Which aid targets poor at the sub-national level?," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    18. Ryan C. Briggs, 2020. "Results from single-donor analyses of project aid success seem to generalize pretty well across donors," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 947-963, October.
    19. van de Walle, Dominique & Mu, Ren, 2007. "Fungibility and the flypaper effect of project aid: Micro-evidence for Vietnam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 667-685, November.
    20. Tomoki Fujii, 2013. "Geographic decomposition of inequality in health and wealth: evidence from Cambodia," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(3), pages 373-392, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0218671. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.