Vinod Thomas

• Professor at National University of Singapore

The original version of this chapter was revised.

This introductory chapter opens the discussion on applying economic tools for evaluating sustainable development. It sets out the focal argument of this book that the current approach to development evaluation, which primarily assesses the value added of growth with only a cursory glance given to issues of inclusion, environmental stewardship, and...

This chapter features objectives-based evaluation (OBE) as a means to assessing the performance of international development finance, which remains key to achieving sustainable development priorities in many parts of the world. It lays out key evaluation criteria included in OBE and illustrates its multi-level approach that not only focuses on proj...

This concluding chapter summarizes our discussion and sets out three aspects that can help make economic evaluation of sustainable development stronger—broadening our understanding of the direct and indirect impacts, recognizing the global dimension of sustainable development priorities, and getting innovative with data to make evaluations current...

This chapter focuses on one of the oldest techniques of economic evaluation, cost-benefit analysis (CBA). It takes the readers through the steps involved in conducting a CBA. In addition to conventional steps to be followed, it underscores the use of the technique in examining inclusion and environmental sustainability. It also includes case studie...

This chapter underscores the importance of causal attribution and takes the readers through various impact evaluation methodologies that enable evaluators to measure the causal impact of policies. Using case studies, it highlights important assumptions, advantages, and disadvantages of each methodology to give readers a sense of how these technique...

“Readers can gain much from the knowledge and wisdom reflected in its pages.” —Arnold Harberger, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago and University of California Los Angeles “I recommend it highly.” —Jyotsna Puri, Head, Independent Evaluation Unit, Green Climate Fund “The strength of this book is the clarity of its exposition...

Intense climate-related disasters—floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves—have been on the rise worldwide. At the same time and coupled with an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, temperatures, on average, have been rising, and are becoming more variable and more extreme. Rainfall has also been more variable and more ex...

Evidence-based economic policies — pragmatic policies that work — played a major role in Asia’s success in raising its living standards in the last half century. However, growth prospects are now threatened by rising income inequality and environmental degradation if Asia continues on its established growth path. Evidence strongly argues for Asia t...

Newly industrializing econ- omies have shown the way to high growth and rapid poverty reduction, but at the expense of severe environmental losses. This experience shows that the

Over the recent year, humanity has faced natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude and impact. However, governments and international aid organizations do not systematically plan for preventing and mitigating the effects of natural disasters, and macroeconomic scenarios seldom take into account the results of their increasing incidence, damages,...

Evaluation can make a positive difference to development results. Yet, the emergence of extended results chains and the growing significance of linkages across projects and programmes have increased the challenges of producing useful evaluations. Meanwhile, the timeliness in the provision of evaluative findings is proving to be crucial for ensuring...

Rapid economic growth over the past decade was the main driver of poverty reduction. However, due to the global market turmoil, growth in recent times has slowed and ground may be lost in poverty reduction. An important question for the sustainability of growth is: Has the world become more equal or unequal with globalisation? The evidence on...

Abstract As human capital is one of the few assets that the poor may possess, its distribution matters for both welfare and efficiency. This article introduces a new dataset containing several indices measuring inequalities in educational attainment for 140 countries between 1960 and 2000. Using education Gini and Theil indices we are able to compa...

This paper explores whether education and openness together can improve the development impact of investment projects - based on what we know of the World Bank's lending experience in the past twenty years. A framework is then proposed for the link between education, openness and investment returns. Our empirical results show that formal education,...

Incl. abstract, bibl., tables.

Globalization represents growing integration of the economic, financial, political, social and cultural lives of countries. Rapid globalization has been induced by a scientific–technological revolution, by the need to reap the economies of scale of international markets and the unprecedented openness of countries. It has simultaneously opened up a...

But some of the successes have been spectacular. The East Asian economies as a group consistently outperformed other developing regions over the past 3 decades, and policymakers everywhere are asking why. In particular, economies such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan progressed remarkably well under fairly interventionist policies. And now China is regi...

Development is the most pressing challenge facing the human race. Despite the enormous opportunities created by the advances in technology, more than 1 billion people, one-fifth of the world's population, live on less than US$1 a day, a standard of living that the United States and Europe attained two centuries ago. Demographic, political, and tech...

In the 1980s many developing countries began to recognize that restrictive trade policies can constrain growth. To facilitate trade and integration into the world economy, many countries have embarked on reform programs. This survey synthesizes the conclusions of the literature on trade policy reform with those of a recent study by the World Bank a...

This paper looks at the economic policies and institutions needed to generate and sustain economic growth and development. It argues that policy and institutional reforms are needed in three broad areas. First, the need for a fiscal policy and overall macroeconomic framework that ensures stability is critical. Second, sectoral pricing and investmen...

This paper evaluates developing country experience with trade policy reforms and makes recommendations for improving the design and implementation of those reforms. It assesses the extent and effectiveness of the reforms under adjustment programs in the 1980s, highlighting practical problems and constraints, both economic and political. In particul...

During the 1980's, many developing countries received financial and policy support for trade policy reform. There has been major reform in exchange rate policy, in the reduction of export restrictions, and in removing impediments to the imports of inputs needed by exporters. Import regimes in many countries have been improved by substituting tariff...

Reaping the full benefit of adjustment packages depends on a government's commitment to reform as well as a variety of complementary factors, many of which have not been duly considered because of the lack of time, resources, and skills. It is becoming increasingly clear that if these packages are to be more effective and credible, the menu of poli...

Regional disparities in living standards within Brazil have received increasing attention in recent years. Drawing on the ENDEF consumption survey, this paper indicates that, although costs of living adjustments narrow spatial differences, large regional disparities remain, particularly upon comparing the Northeast and the Southeast. The applicatio...

The world has been urbanizing rapidly for a long hibition of further industrial concentration-are in- T time and shows every sign of continuing to do so: tended to decentralize economic activity from large, more than 40 percent of the world's population today are congested urban agglomerations. The stated objectives urban dwellers. Dramatic urbaniz...

With rapid industrialization, environmental pollution has reached alarming proportions in some of the urban centers in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo. Available evidence points to substantial detrimental effects on human morbidity and mortality in the highly contaminated and heavily populated areas. In reducing pollution, however, substantial co...

This paper deals with the welfare losses resulting from emission control policies which do not take into account differences in control costs among firms and in benefits across regions. In contrast, an optimal policy considers these differences, and on their basis, requires differential controls among regions, presumably encouraging spatial adaptat...

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This paper examines the implications of spatial differences in living costs for measures of poverty. Taking Peru as a case study, spatial price indices are used to calculate location-specific poverty lines, based on the local cost of a basket of basic needs. Applied to income distribution data, these poverty lines yield measures of the extent and l...

A method is described for constructing spatial indices of the cost of a basket of basic “requirements” of food and nonfood categories. The proposed index for nonfood items is built up from household expenditure, since their prices are unavailable in most developing countries. Using Peru as a case study, it is shown that the cost differences have si...

A model of joint-production of a conventional output and of pollutants is presented which allows continuous substitution between polluting fuels and nonpolluting inputs on the one hand and pollution-control inputs on the other. Using the steel industry as a case study, the welfare cost under an efficient policy to reduce particulate emissions is ev...

In this connection, this paper addresses a twofold question. First, it deals with the question of the "what" - the need for evaluation methods and institutional frameworks to respond to the growing uncertainties and complexity of development situations. The paper notes the lasting validity of some of the basics in evaluation, and the need to return...

New challenges and growing uncertainties make the task of providing useful evaluations increasingly complex. Challenges include the growing inter-linkages across sectors and players in development, while uncertainties include global risks. Especially in these circumstances, evaluations need to go beyond monitoring of stated goals, and seek to captu...

In many ways the 1990s concentrated the development experiences of the previous 40 years, providing approaches and cautions to guide policy action in the new century. While the experience confirms the essential contribution of market-friendly policies; it also brings out missing aspects. Foremost among them are distribution of human development, th...

Traducción de: The Quality of Growth