Assessing the Impact and Cost of Economic Inclusion Programs: A Synthesis of Evidence

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course

“…Several approaches and tools can be leveraged across countries to retrieve the comprehensive cost and impact data needed by governments when making fiscal policy choices. Examples are the quick costing tool developed by the World Bank's Partnership for Economic Inclusion to analyze self-reported cost data from 34 economic inclusion programs (Varghese Paul, Vasudeva Dutta, and Chaudhary 2021); the cost-effectiveness analyses of education-focused programs from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Dhaliwal et al 2012); and the tools developed by several research programs under the World Bank's Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund.…”