The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.

This ground-breaking text offers alternative models for critical evaluation of the values behind and the success of local-level economic development policies.

The objective of the book is to evaluate critically the ten principles of the Washington Consensus, which govern the conditionality provisions of the IMF and World Bank, and guide the so-called economic reform in developing countries. The book starts with an overview of the Consensus, followed by a chapter on IMF conditionality and how they are related. Since the Consensus is inherently neoliberal, a chapter is devoted to a critique of the free market doctrine and the concept of economic freedom as seen by free marketeers. The ten principles of the Washington Consensus (referred to as the 'ten commandments') are divided into four groups: fiscal reform, interest and exchange rate policies, liberalization of trade and foreign direct investment, and privatization and deregulation (including property rights).The book is written in the normative tradition of what ought to be, as opposed to the positive tradition of what is. While it may be tempting to describe the work as 'polemic', the underlying issues contain such a significant moral component that pretending to be neutral would be a betrayal of justice and morality. In essence, the arguments put forward in the book are intended to dismantle, discredit and debunk a set of principles that are effectively used to loot developing countries.

'The Road to Results: Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations' presents concepts and procedures for evaluation in a development context. It provides procedures and examples on how to set up a monitoring and evaluation system, how to conduct participatory evaluations and do social mapping, and how to construct a "rigorous" quasi-experimental design to answer an impact question. The text begins with the context of development evaluation and how it arrived where it is today. It then discusses current issues driving development evaluation, such as the Millennium Development Goals and the move from simple project evaluations to the broader understandings of complex evaluations. The topics of implementing 'Results-based Measurement and Evaluation' and constructing a 'Theory of Change' are emphasized throughout the text. Next, the authors take the reader down 'the road to results, ' presenting procedures for evaluating projects, programs, and policies by using a 'Design Matrix' to help map the process. This road includes: determining the overall approach, formulating questions, selecting designs, developing data collection instruments, choosing a sampling strategy, and planning data analysis for qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method evaluations. The book also includes discussions on conducting complex evaluations, how to manage evaluations, how to present results, and ethical behavior--including principles, standards, and guidelines. The final chapter discusses the future of development evaluation. This comprehensive text is an essential tool for those involved in development evaluation.

What are the underlying rationales for industrial policy? Does empirical evidence support the use of industrial policy for correcting market failures that plague the process of industrialization? To address these questions, the authors provide a critical survey of the analytical literature on industrial policy. They also review some recent industry successes and argue that only a limited role was played by public interventions. Moreover, the recent ascendance of international industrial networks, which dominate the sectors in which less developed countries have in the past had considerable success, implies a further limitation on the potential role of industrial policies as traditionally understood. Overall, there appears to be little empirical support for an activist government policy even though market failures exist that can, in principle, justify the use of industrial policy.

Conventional interpretations of the New Economic Policy introduced in India in 1991 see this program of economic liberalization as transforming the Indian economy and leading to a substantial increase in the rate of India’s economic growth. But in a country like India, growth is not enough. Who benefits from the new growth regime, and can it significantly improve the conditions of livelihood for India’s 800 million people with incomes below $2.00 a day? This edited volume looks at international policy regimes and their national adoption under strategic conditions of economic crisis and coercion, and within longer-term structural changes in the power calculus of global capitalism. The contributors examine long-term growth tendencies, poverty and employment rates at the national level, regional level and local levels in India; the main growth centers; the areas and people left out; the advantages and deficiencies of the existing policy regime, and alternative economic policies for India. Bringing together the leading figures in the discussion on India’s economic policy, this volume is the authoritative critical study of India’s New Economic Policy.

Public programs are designed to reach certain goals and beneficiaries. Methods to understand whether such programs actually work, as well as the level and nature of impacts on intended beneficiaries, are main themes of this book.