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Can process conditionality enhance aid effectiveness?

The role of bureaucratic interest and public pressure

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Abstract

Can process conditionality enhance poverty reduction in developing countries? We address this question in a political-economic framework with political distortions on the recipient and the donor side. Process conditionality is a useful tool only if the international financial institutions hold all necessary information to assess the political situation in recipient countries and to select the true representatives of the poor into a participatory process. If they do not hold this information or if bureaucratic interests reduce their incentive to acquire this information, process conditionality loses its effectiveness.

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Correspondence to Carsten Hefeker.

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We are grateful for valuable and constructive comments by an anonymous referee.

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Hefeker, C., Michaelowa, K. Can process conditionality enhance aid effectiveness?. Public Choice 122, 159–175 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-005-5791-3

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