Fungibility and the Impact of Development Assistance : Evidence from Vietnam's Health Sector

Wagstaff, Adam

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ACCURATE ESTIMATE;    AGED;    ALLOCATION;    AMOUNT OF MONEY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4800
RP-ID  :  WPS4800

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

How can the impact of aid be estimatedin the presence of fungibility? And how far does fungibilityreduce its benefits? These questions are analyzed in acontext where a donor wants to target its efforts on aspecific sector and specific geographic areas. A traditionaldifferences-in-differences method comparing the change inoutcomes between the target and nontarget areas before andafter the project risks misestimating the project'sbenefits. The paper develops an alternative estimationmethod in which intersectoral fungibility reduces projectbenefits insofar as government spending has a smaller impactin the sector to which the funds leak than in the targetsector, while intrasectoral fungibility reduces benefitsinsofar as the donor is able to leverage productivityincreases in government spending in the target areas. Themethods are applied to two contemporaneous World Bank healthprojects that set out to target assistance on approximatelyone-half of Vietnam's provinces. Aid is not apparentlyfungible between Vietnam's health sector and othersectors, but is fungible across provinces within the healthsector. Differences-in-differences yield an insignificantimpact on infant mortality, while the use of the new methodyields a statistically significant impact of around 4 per1000 live births. The results, however, are ambiguous on thecosts associated with intrasectoral fungibility.