Payment by Results (PbR), where aid is disbursed conditional upon progress against a pre-agreed measure, is becoming increasingly important for various donors. There are great hopes that this innovative instrument will focus attention on ultimate outcomes and lead to greater aid effectiveness by passing the delivery risk on to recipients. However, there is very little related empirical evidence, and previous attempts to place it on a sure conceptual footing are rare and incomplete. This article collates and synthesises relevant insights from a wide range of subfields in economics, providing a rich framework with which to analyze Payment by Results. I argue that the domain in which it dominates more traditional forms is relatively small and if it is used too broadly, many of the results it claims are likely to be misleading. The likelihood of illusory gains stems from the difficulty of using a single indicator to simultaneously measure and reward performance: ‘once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ This does not mean PbR should not be used (indeed it will be optimal in some settings), but it does mean that claims of success should be treated with caution.

中文翻译：

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在发展援助中按成果付款：闪闪发光的不是黄金

按成果付款（PbR）对各种捐助者来说变得越来越重要，按成果付款（PbR）的条件是根据事先商定的措施取得进展。寄予厚望的是，这一创新工具将把注意力集中在最终结果上，并通过将传递风险转移给受援国而提高援助效力。但是，几乎没有相关的经验证据，并且以前尝试将其置于确定的概念基础上的尝试很少且不完整。本文整理并综合了来自各个经济学子领域的相关见解，为分析按结果支付提供了一个丰富的框架。我认为，它支配着更多传统形式的领域相对较小，如果使用得过于广泛，它声称的许多结果可能会产生误导。虚幻收益的可能性源于使用单个指标同时衡量和奖励绩效的困难：“一旦衡量指标成为目标，它就不再是一个好的衡量指标。” 这并不意味着不应该使用PbR（实际上，在某些情况下它是最佳的），但是它的确意味着对成功的主张应谨慎对待。