Why Do Some Development Projects Finish While Others Don't? Ghana's Fiscal Institutions Provide Insight

Development projects like schools and latrines are popular with politicians and voters alike, yet many abandoned mid-construction.

• Using a new database of over 14k Ghana small development projects: one-third never completed, consuming nearly one-fifth local government investment.

• Explaining project noncompletion through a theory of dynamically inconsistent collective choices facing commitment problems.

• Finding evidence consistent with this theory but not corruption or clientelism explanations.

These findings suggest fiscal institutions can increase completion rates by mitigating these political failures.