This paper investigates the effects of development projects on economic networks. To this end, we study the impact that a randomly allocated Community-Driven Development program in The Gambia has on economic interactions within rural villages. The program provides an exogenous source of variation to village-level stocks of productive capital and to village-wide collective activities. Based on detailed data on economic and social networks, we find a significant reduction of interactions in these networks in treatment villages. We investigate several possible mechanisms and find evidence that is consistent with two channels. First, the evidence points towards a modest village-level transformation process from a gift economy to a more formal economy. Second, we also find evidence that is consistent with elite capture, favoritism, and unequally distributed benefits leading to reductions in social capital and thus economic transactions. Overall, our findings suggest changes in networks as an avenue through which development interventions may have unintended consequences. ∗We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) through project 250842093 “The dynamics of economic community networks in the development process: An empirical study in rural Gambia, West Africa”. We are thankful for many helpful comments from colleagues and seminar audiences. We particularly thank Jean-Louis Arcand, Erwin Bulte, Arun Chandrasekhar, Margharita Comola, Marcel Fafchamps, Matthew Jackson, Raymond Jatta, and Rachel Kranton, Adam Szeidl, four anonymous referees for their comments, and Julien Labonne for insights about the implementation of the Gambian CDD program. We are grateful for the local support we received through the Gambia Bureau of Statistics and by the nine field workers without whom the data collection would not have been possible. †Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Goethe University Frankfurt. RuW Postbox 46, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 4, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. ‡Facultad de Economı́a y Negocios, Universidad de Talca, Avenida Lircay s/n, Talca, Chile

中文翻译：

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发展项目和经济网络：冈比亚农村的教训

本文研究了发展项目对经济网络的影响。为此，我们研究了冈比亚随机分配的社区驱动发展计划对农村经济互动的影响。该计划为村级生产资本存量和全村集体活动提供了外生变异来源。根据经济和社会网络的详细数据，我们发现治疗村中这些网络中的互动显着减少。我们调查了几种可能的机制，并找到了与两个渠道一致的证据。首先，证据指向一个适度的村级转型过程，从礼品经济到更正规的经济。其次，我们还发现了与精英俘获、偏袒、利益分配不均导致社会资本减少，从而导致经济交易减少。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，网络的变化是发展干预可能产生意想不到后果的一种途径。*我们非常感谢DFG（Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft）通过项目250842093“发展过程中经济社区网络的动态：西非冈比亚农村的实证研究”提供的财政支持。我们感谢同事和研讨会听众的许多有益评论。我们特别感谢 Jean-Louis Arcand、Erwin Bulte、Arun Chandrasekhar、Margharita Comola、Marcel Fafchamps、Matthew Jackson、Raymond Jatta 和 Rachel Kranton、Adam Szeidl，四位匿名裁判的评论，和 Julien Labonne 获得有关冈比亚 CDD 计划实施的见解。我们感谢通过冈比亚统计局和九名现场工作人员为我们提供的当地支持，没有他们就不可能收集数据。†法兰克福歌德大学经济与工商管理学院。RuW Postbox 46, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 4, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany。‡Facultad de Economı́a y Negocios, Universidad de Talca, Avenida Lircay s/n, Talca, 智利 德国。‡Facultad de Economı́a y Negocios, Universidad de Talca, Avenida Lircay s/n, Talca, 智利 德国。‡Facultad de Economı́a y Negocios, Universidad de Talca, Avenida Lircay s/n, Talca, 智利