Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector
The apparent fungibility of aid is a challenge to the evaluation of donor-funded development projects, requiring a comparison of the observed outcomes with the outcomes that would have occurred if the project had not gone ahead. Where projects are targeted on specific geographic areas, counterfactua...
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okr-10986-50112021-04-23T14:02:20Z Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector Wagstaff, Adam National Government Expenditures and Health H510 Health: General I100 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions : International Trade, Finance, Investment, and Aid P330 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics Health Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty P360 The apparent fungibility of aid is a challenge to the evaluation of donor-funded development projects, requiring a comparison of the observed outcomes with the outcomes that would have occurred if the project had not gone ahead. Where projects are targeted on specific geographic areas, counterfactual outcomes in each can differ from observed outcomes because the amount of government spending (gross of aid) differs, the productivity of government spending differs, or both. This paper estimates the benefits of two concurrent World Bank health projects in Vietnam targeted on specific provinces. Estimates are derived from a model linking outcomes (under-five mortality) to government spending before and after the project and in project and nonproject provinces, and are presented for different assumptions regarding fungibility of funds (zero and full fungibility) and the impacts of the project on the productivity of government spending (the project modifies productivity in both sectors equally and in neither sector). The estimated mortality reductions are highly insensitive to the assumed degree of fungibility, but highly sensitive to the assumed productivity effects (the estimates range from 1 to 25%). The wide range reflects the uncertainty due to the lack of a genuine control group of provinces. 2012-03-30T07:30:50Z 2012-03-30T07:30:50Z 2011 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 03043878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5011 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article Vietnam |
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Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
institution |
Digital Repositories |
building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
collection |
World Bank |
language |
EN |
topic |
National Government Expenditures and Health H510 Health: General I100 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions : International Trade, Finance, Investment, and Aid P330 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics Health Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty P360 |
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National Government Expenditures and Health H510 Health: General I100 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 International Linkages to Development Role of International Organizations O190 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions : International Trade, Finance, Investment, and Aid P330 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics Health Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty P360 Wagstaff, Adam Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
geographic_facet |
Vietnam |
relation |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo |
description |
The apparent fungibility of aid is a challenge to the evaluation of donor-funded development projects, requiring a comparison of the observed outcomes with the outcomes that would have occurred if the project had not gone ahead. Where projects are targeted on specific geographic areas, counterfactual outcomes in each can differ from observed outcomes because the amount of government spending (gross of aid) differs, the productivity of government spending differs, or both. This paper estimates the benefits of two concurrent World Bank health projects in Vietnam targeted on specific provinces. Estimates are derived from a model linking outcomes (under-five mortality) to government spending before and after the project and in project and nonproject provinces, and are presented for different assumptions regarding fungibility of funds (zero and full fungibility) and the impacts of the project on the productivity of government spending (the project modifies productivity in both sectors equally and in neither sector). The estimated mortality reductions are highly insensitive to the assumed degree of fungibility, but highly sensitive to the assumed productivity effects (the estimates range from 1 to 25%). The wide range reflects the uncertainty due to the lack of a genuine control group of provinces. |
format |
Journal Article |
author |
Wagstaff, Adam |
author_facet |
Wagstaff, Adam |
author_sort |
Wagstaff, Adam |
title |
Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
title_short |
Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
title_full |
Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
title_fullStr |
Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector |
title_sort |
fungibility and the impact of development assistance: evidence from vietnam's health sector |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5011 |
_version_ |
1764393589733851136 |