Abstract
If development projects are to be effective, a minimum requirement is that the funding reaches its intended destination. Yet the history of international development is replete with examples of this not happening. I argue that there will be fewer problems with corruption or other diversions of funding-which I jointly label capture-in more precisely targeted projects. More well-defined targeting results in superior accountability relationships because there is greater clarity of responsibility, clearer information about outcomes, and improved identifiability of stakeholders. I use an original cross-country, cross-project data set on the incidence of capture in World Bank-funded investment projects to test the theory. The data show a negative relationship between targeting and capture, and I demonstrate that this relationship is robust to a variety of specifications. In addition, I find that there is a higher baseline likelihood of project capture in countries perceived as more corrupt according to commonly used survey-based measures from Transparency International and the Worldwide Governance Indicators, cross-validating those measures and my own.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 393-404 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | International Studies Quarterly |
Volume | 58 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2014 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations