Resources records of the over 2,700 distinct TTLs in our sample. Another difference is that Limodio (2021) considers the preparation TTLs exclusively, while we broaden the staff considered to include supervision TTLs, Practice Managers, and Country Directors. Limodio (2021) finds that good preparation TTLs change fewer countries, are in charge of more and larger projects. He does not find correlations between TTL performance and their gender nor years of experience, but the number of internal promotions positively correlates with performance. Moreover, Limodio (2021) documents a negative assortative matching between high-performing TTLs and low-performing countries. Honig (2020) takes a different approach, focusing on the relationship between staff presence in recipient countries and project performance, rather than individual characteristics. He finds that the TTL presence in country-offices during preparation and implementation has no significant effect on project success. However, Honig (2020) finds that the local presence of a Country Director is associated with greater project success, especially in fragile states and since the "Strategic Compact" initiative increased the power of Country Directors.

# **_2.3. Country-level characteristics_**

Alongside micro-correlates of project success, various studies have looked at macro-correlates of project success such as financial and growth indicators and, especially, institutional quality. Isham et al. (1997), for instance, report that recipient country civil liberties indicators positively relate with projects' economic rate of return and likelihood of a successful rating. The view that strong public sector institutions matter for project success is supported by documenting the effects of the government effectiveness index (Buntaine and Parks, 2013) and state capacity measures (Hanson and Sigman, 2019) on project outcomes. In a related vein, Denizer et al. (2013) and Geli et al. (2014) find that institutional quality, measured by the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) score, has a significant and positive correlation with project success.<sup>6</sup> There are contradictory findings elsewhere, however. Using the Freedom House scores for civil liberties and political rights, Feeny and Vuong (2017) find that the probability of Asian Development Bank projects' success appears lower in more democratic countries. And Blum (2014) finds no clear evidence that projects, at least in public sector management, are more likely to succeed in countries with higher administrative capacity, as measured by CPIA scores and International Country Risk Guides (ICRG) Bureaucratic Quality Ratings. Blum (2014) offers an explanation for this seemingly counterintuitive result, arguing that TTLs may adjust the ambitiousness of their project objectives to the level of administrative capacity in the respective country. Therefore, he argues, the likelihood of reaching these objectives across countries and institutional environments is relatively constant.

The idea that economic growth and stability are conducive to project success is intuitively appealing and supported by evidence. Higher GDP growth rates are associated with more successful projects (Denizer et al., 2013; Briggs, 2020; Bulman et al., 2017; Feeny and Vuong, 2017; Presbitero, 2016), while economically unstable environments – such as high export volatility (Guillaumont and Laajaj, 2006), inflation (Deininger et al., 1998) and GDP volatility (Caselli and Presbitero, 2021) – are associated with worse project outcomes. On the other hand, Presbitero (2016) finds that World Bank projects implemented during periods of public investment booms are less likely to succeed, comprising suggestive evidence of absorptive capacity constraints in recipient countries.

> 6 These scores comprise a set of criteria grouped into four clusters: economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions.

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