analysis to receive the same forethought. Impact evaluators frequently face a lack of cost data and lack of standards for performing analyses. Moreover, some economists—the discipline that churns out most of the IE work in international development—relate that Cost analysis does not “feel like” microeconomics, and together with a lack of training in Cost analysis methods and the challenge of getting it right even if the data are available, make the cost of doing the analysis greater than the benefit—from the researcher’s perspective (Evans, 2016). Together, these factors conspire to expose researchers to risk of costly critique from peer reviewers—convincing many to avoid the exercise altogether.

When it is performed, VFM analysis often seems to come as an afterthought, with cost data inquiries sometimes made well after a project has been closed. This is reflected in the general lack of detail on VFM analysis in impact evaluations, including those done at the World Bank and on Bank projects where cost data should be easier to procure, and Cost analysis should be more valued than analysis done as academic exercises.

For example, of the less than 19 percent of World Bank impact evaluations that include any type of Value for Money analysis, only 13 percent—or less than 2.5 percent of World Bank impact evaluations—reported unit costs of inputs. When cost data are not explicitly available, they are estimated—sometimes borrowing from other studies— but more frequently without meaningful details of how Costs were estimated. Such ex post data collection is prone to recall bias and underestimating expenditures (Evans and Popova 2016). About two-fifths of the World Bank’s impact evaluations do not indicate which cost elements are included in the analysis. Apart from the very real challenges of using accurate cost data, it is extremely rare for World Bank IE-VFM studies to indicate parameters used for basic assumptions in Cost analysis: discount rates, exchange rates, or time horizons, for example. In general, there seems to be a clear disconnect between the careful planning of the estimation of benefits through impact evaluations and the suboptimal quality in the reporting of Cost information. This may explain the hesitancy of journal editors to include it (or institutional funders of IEs require it) as a matter of course.

The combination of these weak incentives and relatively high costs likely accounts for much of the reason why the Value for Money of development interventions is calculated using impact evaluation estimates so infrequently.

**Finding 3:** At the institutional level, political considerations and significant heterogeneity in VFM approaches and methods are constraints to greater inclusion of VFM in impact evaluations.

Individual evaluators and institutional representatives largely agreed that most of the demand for VFM is internal to institutions that both produce and use impact evaluations. However, even for those institutions, there are real challenges to embedding Value for Money analysis within impact evaluations. Political interests and inconsistency in the application of guidelines and methods are clear friction points.

Veteran CEA and CBA methodologists pointed to institutional interests that work against the strict application of cost-effectiveness thresholds to internal decision-making about programs. While the World Bank has largely diluted Value for Money considerations from 20