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While most economists assume that aid is fungible, most aid donors behave as if it is not. The authors study recipient government responses to development project aid in the context of a specific World Bank-financed project. They estimate the impact of a rural road rehabilitation project in Vietnam on the kilometers of roads actually rehabilitated and built. Using local-level survey data collected for this purpose, the authors test whether the evidence supports the standard economic argument that there will be little or no impact on rural roads rehabilitated, given fungibility. They find evidence that, although project aid impacts on rehabilitated road kilometers were less than intended, more roads were built in project areas. The results suggest that there was fungibility within the sector, but that aid largely stuck to that sector.

Communities & Human Settlements --- Costs --- Grants --- Housing and Human Habitats --- Infrastructure --- Inspection --- Length of Roads --- Ministry of Transport --- Motor Vehicle --- Road --- Road Building --- Road Improvements --- Road Links --- Road Maintenance --- Road Network --- Road Sector --- Roads --- Rural Roads --- Rural Transport --- Tax --- Taxes --- Transport --- Transport Economics, Policy and Planning

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We assess impacts of rural road rehabilitation on market and institutional development at the commune level in rural Vietnam. Double difference and matching methods are used to address sources of selection bias in identifying impacts. We focus on impact heterogeneities and the geographic, community, and household factors that explain them. A key question from a policy standpoint is whether the impact-contingent factors are consistent and universal across project areas and outcome indicators. We find evidence of considerable impact heterogeneity, with a tendency for poorer areas to have conditions favoring higher impacts, although impacts are highly context specific.

Bottlenecks --- Population density --- Road --- Road conditions --- Road improvements --- Rural Roads --- Rural Transport --- Transport --- Transport costs --- Transport Economics, Policy and Planning --- Vehicle

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This paper shows how differences in aggregate human development outcomes over time and space can be additively decomposed into a pure economic-growth component, a component attributed to differences in the distribution of income, and components attributed to "non-income" factors and differences in the model linking outcomes to income or non-income characteristics. The income effect at the micro level is modeled non-parametrically, so as to flexibly reflect distributional changes. The paper illustrates the decomposition using data for Morocco and Vietnam, and the results offer some surprising insights into the observed aggregate gains in schooling attainments. A user friendly STATA program is available to implement the method in other settings.

Curriculum --- Education --- Education for All --- Enrollment --- Enrollment rate --- Gender gap --- Gender of teachers --- Girls --- Health, Nutrition and Population --- Human Development --- Inequality --- Literacy --- Population Policies --- Poverty Reduction --- Primary Education --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Schooling --- Schools