Interventions led by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are often more effective than comparable efforts by other actors, yet relatively little is known about how implementer identity drives final outcomes. Combining a stratified field experiment in India with a triple-differences estimation strategy, Faraz Usmani, Marc Jeuland and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak show that a local development NGO’s prior engagement with target communities increases the effectiveness of a technology-promotion intervention implemented by at least 30 percent. This “NGO effect” has implications for the generalizability and scalability of evidence from experimental research conducted with local implementation partners. https://en.rwi-essen.de/media/content/pages/publikationen/ruhr-economic-papers/rep_21_902.pdf
Last modified: April 21, 2021
