Krister Andersson - Böcker

What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements. The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs.

What's wrong with foreign aid? Many policymakers, aid practitioners, and scholars have called into question its ability to increase economic growth, alleviate poverty, or promote social development. At the macro level, only tenuous links between development aid and improved living conditions have been found. At the micro level, only a few programs outlast donor support and even fewer appear to achieve lasting improvements. The authors of this book argue that much of aid's failure is related to the institutions that structure its delivery. These institutions govern the complex relationships between the main actors in the aid delivery system and often generate a series of perverse incentives that promote inefficient and unsustainable outcomes. In their analysis, the authors apply the theoretical insights of the new institutional economics to several settings. First, they investigate the institutions of Sida, the Swedish aid agency, to analyze how that aid agency's institutions can produce incentives inimical to desired outcomes, contrary to the desires of its own staff. Second, the authors use cases from India, a country with low aid dependence, and Zambia, a country with high aid dependence, to explore how institutions on the ground in recipient countries also mediate the effectiveness of aid. Throughout the book, the authors offer suggestions about how to improve aid's effectiveness. These suggestions include how to structure evaluations in order to improve outcomes, how to employ agency staff to gain from their on-the-ground experience, and how to engage stakeholders as "owners" in the design, resource mobilization, learning, and evaluation processes of development assistance programs.

Despite the recent economic upswing in many Latin American countries, rural poverty rates in the region have actually increased during the past two decades. Experts blame excessively centralized public administrations for the lackluster performance of public policy initiatives. In response, decentralization reformshave become a common government strategy for improving public sector performance in rural areas. The effect of these reforms is a topic of considerable debate among government officials, policy scholars, and citizens' groups. This book offers a systematic analysis of how local governments and farmer groups in Latin America are actually faring today.Based on interviews with more than 1,200 mayors, local officials, and farmers in 390 municipal territories in four Latin American nations, the authors analyze the ways in which different forms of decentralization affect the governance arrangements for rural development ""on the ground."" Their comparative analysis suggests that rural development outcomes are systemically linked to locally negotiated institutional arrangements—formal and informal—between government officials, NGOs, and farmer groups that operate in the local sphere. They find that local-government actors contribute to public services that better assist the rural poor when local actors cooperate to develop their own institutional arrangements for participatory planning, horizontal learning, and the joint production of services.This study brings substantive data and empirical analysis to a discussion that has, until now, more often depended on qualitative research in isolated cases. With more than 60 percent of Latin America's rural population living in poverty, the results are both timely and crucial.

European taxes have long been debated for their potential role as barriers to increased investment and welfare. The discussion has often circulated around the size of the tax bases and the magnitude of the tax rate. In this book we argue that in the taxation context the European Union (EU) is at a cross-road facing strong forces pushing it into two polar positions. One of these is the scenario with all welfare provided by the national regime and financed by taxes collected entirely by national authorities. The other extreme is the situation where all welfare is - fered at an EU level financed entirely by taxes collected at that level. The two forces pressing the tax situation into one of these two poles are spelt tax compe- tion and welfare arbitrage. The research question addressed in this book covers the existence of a potential steady state in between these to poles. Our basic - pothesis is that their might be such a steady state due to the immobility of some tax bases and where the taxation of these bases have no externalities affecting - vestment. We argue that the very complex tax structures of Europe and the tax - certainty facing investors in Europe need to be addressed in a comprehensive way.

European taxes have long been debated for their potential role as barriers to increased investment and welfare. The discussion has often circulated around the size of the tax bases and the magnitude of the tax rate. In this book we argue that in the taxation context the European Union (EU) is at a cross-road facing strong forces pushing it into two polar positions. One of these is the scenario with all welfare provided by the national regime and financed by taxes collected entirely by national authorities. The other extreme is the situation where all welfare is - fered at an EU level financed entirely by taxes collected at that level. The two forces pressing the tax situation into one of these two poles are spelt tax compe- tion and welfare arbitrage. The research question addressed in this book covers the existence of a potential steady state in between these to poles. Our basic - pothesis is that their might be such a steady state due to the immobility of some tax bases and where the taxation of these bases have no externalities affecting - vestment. We argue that the very complex tax structures of Europe and the tax - certainty facing investors in Europe need to be addressed in a comprehensive way.