Does Foreign Aid Work?

In this course students will examine whether foreign aid is effective at reducing global poverty. We will begin by assessing arguments for and against foreign aid, based on recent debates in donor countries, and then examine the evidence base, focusing on results from randomized control trials (RCTs), which are now widely viewed as the gold standard for understanding what works in international development. We will analyze evidence related to interventions in the health, education, finance, and political sectors, focusing on recent innovations including cash benchmarking and cost-effectiveness analysis.