The results are often specific to a particular country’s circumstances, and there is no reason to presume that they would scale up when fully confronted with a developing country’s governance problems. The fact that people in several African countries appear to be worse off now than in 1960 is far more related to despotism and internal conflict than it is to the effectiveness of aid-delivery programs.
另一个理论上较为流行的手段就是实施小型随机实验去考察提高入学率或者免疫项目的有效性。迪顿正确地指出这个当前世界银行奉为至宝的方法对于认识如何帮助一个国家更大范围地发展是没什么作用的。考察结果往往局限于某个国家的独特状况，也无法证明这些结果能广泛推广开来去应对一个发展中国家的治理问题。而多个非洲国家人民的生存状况比1960年代更加恶化的事实其实与专制独裁和内部冲突更加相关，而不是援助项目的有效性。