Hopes for development aid remain high among Western politicians and pundits, but the evidence is depressing. Foreign aid has on average probably no effect on long-run growth. To understand the failure of many development projects, we need a deeper consideration of the failure of top-down...

Introduction: Can't take it anymore? / William Easterly -- I: The power of scientific evaluation--and why isn't it done more often? -- Making aid work / Abhijit Banerjee and Ruimin He -- Use of randomization in the evaluation of development effectiveness / Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer -- It...