1 EVALUATING RECIPES FOR DEVELOPMENT SUCCESS*

This paper was written for presentation at the World Bank DEC Lectures on April 21, 2005. It is still highly preliminary and very much a work in progress, not just in its details but also in its structure and even in many basic ideas. Please do not cite. Comments and suggestions are most welcome. I thank Karla Hoff, Boris Pleskovic, and Dani Rodrik for useful discussions and suggestions, but emphasize that they are not responsible for my interpretations and choices; in fact they will disagree with many if not all of these. 2 The main purpose of most scholarly research, both theoretical and empirical, is to improve our understanding of the phenomena and processes being studied. The work may lead to useful prescriptions for policy, but that is usually the end-point of a long and winding path. Often, however, especially in matters of economic development and growth, the problems under investigation are large and urgent, so practitioners want immediate answers. Academic researchers are also tempted to offer suggestions for policy, however tentative or incomplete. Work on institutions and growth is a case in point. When I present my own theoretical models to audiences, I am almost invariably asked to interpret the results for their polic