The political economy of conditionality: An empirical analysis of World Bank loan disbursements

Coding Error or Statistical Embellishment? The Political Economy of Reporting Climate Aid

“…Ever since the late 1970s, researchers have examined politico-economic determinants of aid allocation (for early studies, see McKinley, 1978;McKinley & Little, 1979;Maizels & Nissanke, 1984). 2 More recently, other aspects of aid, such as the relationship between multilateral donors' policies and the interests of member governments (see e.g., Dreher, Sturm, & Vreeland, 2009a;Dreher, Sturm, & Vreeland, 2009b;Kilby, 2009, or the use of specific procedures and instruments of aid delivery, have also been assessed from a politico-economic perspective. For an overview of various aspects of the recent literature on the political economy of aid, see Lahiri and Michaelowa (2006).…”

Choosing international organizations: When do states and the World Bank collaborate on environmental projects?

“…The first incentive resembles Tendler's (1975) notion that aid agencies face pressures to maximize the size of their portfolios. The second incentive is based on the assumption that the implementing agencies have policy interests, often stemming from the interests of the states that control the agencies (Nielson and Tierney 2003), that can be pursued through conditionalities (Dreher 2009;Kilby 2009;Stone 2008Stone , 2011Vreeland 2003). The implementing agencies choose the prices of implementation based on these premises.…”

“…They understand that states for whom successful project implementation is important will accept co-financing requirements and conditionalities. When an international agency has access to valuable resources that would benefit the recipient, it can offer these resources to the recipient's disposal in exchange for policy change (Dreher 2009;Kilby 2009;Stone 2011).…”

“…Project funding is a central form of collaboration between recipients and international funding agencies (Dreher, Sturm, and Vreeland 2009;Kilby 2009;Winters 2010). If a recipient country seeks assistance to implement a project, such as building a road or a hospital, it can propose the project to a number of possible funders, ranging from the World Bank (WB) to regional development banks and bilateral lenders.…”

“…However, researchers have made little progress in explaining how states choose their international partners (see Humphrey and Michaelowa 2013: for an exception). Most studies of project implementation focus on a specific funding agency (Nielson and Tierney 2003;Fleck and Kilby 2006;Kilby 2009;Lyne, Nielson, and Tierney 2009;Winters 2010) and/or donor incentives (Rodrik 1995;Milner 2006). This lack of attention to partner choice is troubling for several reasons.…”