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.