“Following the Refugees”: The World Bank, International Loans, and a Brief History of Refugees and Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Evan Easton-Calabria
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The History of the World Bank

2002 ◽  
Vol 112 (477) ◽  
pp. F119-F135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Marcus
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Gunboats and Diplomacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor St John
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
British Government ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The World ◽  
The Icj ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Memories

Chapter two outlines antecedents of the ICSID Convention. The antagonisms emerging from the long history of investment dispute settlement are briefly discussed, in particular historical memories about separate courts and separate law for foreigners. Early twentieth-century efforts to replace the use of force with arbitration and later work to reframe foreign investment as a tool for development instead of a tool of imperialism provided more hopeful antecedents. Decolonization brought with it high expectations, but also disillusionment: disputes like Abadan (in which the British government sent gunboats, then asked the UN Security Council, the ICJ, and the World Bank to act, before ultimately staging a coup) made capital-importing governments wary and led many officials to believe the world needed new machinery to resolve disputes between investors and states.

Not a Knowledge Bank: The Divided History of Development Economics and Development Organizations

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Alacevich
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Development Economics ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Development Organizations ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Development economics was born as a distinct disciplinary field in the aftermath of World War II, when the development of so-called Third World countries, due to the dynamics of decolonization and the Cold War, became an international priority. At the institutional level, the birth of development economics was paralleled by the reorientation of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (so-called the World Bank) from the support of European reconstruction to funding development policies worldwide. Not surprisingly, the paths of the Bank and of pioneers of development economics often crossed, and it is fair to say that the Bank and the new discipline—from the perspective of the history and sociology of social sciences—are part of the same story. Indeed, one would think that the Bank was the natural place for the breeding of development economics. This seems coherent with the image we have of the Bank today: the reign of economists. Yet, for most of the years when development theory was shaped, the Bank, although very active in development policies worldwide, was remarkably silent in the field of development economics. This paper will connect the study of economic ideas and economists in international organizations with the history of economic policies. Based on previously untapped archival sources, it will discuss how the history of development economics and of development organizations—and especially the largest among them, that is, the World Bank—proceeded separated for a long stretch of time, and how they later converged.

Capital at work

Focaal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 (49) ◽  
pp. 129-135
Author(s):  
Istvan Adorjan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New York ◽  
International Finance ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oxford University Press

David Harvey, A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 247 pp., 0-19928-327-3 (paperback).Patrick Bond, Against the global apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and international finance. 2nd ed. London and New York: Zed Books, 2003. 326 pp, 1-84277-393-3 (paperback).

The Dynamics of the Lost Decade

2019 ◽  
pp. 160-168
Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Physical Capital ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lost Decade ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Major Donors ◽  
Rich Countries

This chapter discusses how the 1980s are often described as the lost decade in the history of development, when the allegedly universal crusade against poverty failed to deliver the expected results. In the early 1980s, neoliberal criticism of development continued apace. Critics railed against the social engineering underlying development and extolled the virtues of the market. The World Bank made no exception, as it moved away from Robert McNamara's basic needs-based policies, now considered harmful rather than useful. During the 1970s, while major donors retreated from bilateral lending, the World Bank had increased its commitments from $1 billion in 1968 to $13 billion in 1981. Cynical developing countries thought that it was “the rich countries' substitute for the NIEO.” However, results were poor, and key elements of the system came under attack: the overextension of the public sector with duties beyond normal governmental functions; excessive emphasis on physical capital and the resulting underestimation of human capital; and the proliferation of economy-distorting controls. The African case was seen as exemplifying the distortions caused by antipoverty World Bank policies.

THE HISTORY OF AFRICAN POVERTY BY NUMBERS: EVIDENCE AND VANTAGE POINTS

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
MORTEN JERVEN
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
Standard Measurement ◽  
Measurement Study ◽  
Numerical Evidence ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vantage Points

ABSTRACTPoverty has a long history in Africa. Yet, the most conventional and influential history of African poverty is a very short one. As told by the World Bank, the history of poverty starts in the 1980s with the first Living Standard Measurement Study. This history of poverty by numbers is also a very narrow one. There is a disconnect between the theoretical and historical underpinnings of how academics understand and define poverty in Africa, and how it has been quantified in practice. While it is generally agreed that poverty is multidimensional and has certain time- and location-specific aspects, the shorthand definition for poverty is the dollar-per-day metric. This article reveals how particular types of knowledge about poverty have gained prominence and thus shaped the dominant interpretation of poverty in Africa. It argues that, based on other numerical evidence, the history of poverty in Africa could be radically different from the dominant interpretation today.

VISUALIZING UNCERTAINTIES, OR HOW ALBERT HIRSCHMAN AND THE WORLD BANK DISAGREED ON PROJECT APPRAISAL AND WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT THE END OF “HIGH DEVELOPMENT THEORY”

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Alacevich
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Development Economics ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Project Design ◽  
Project Appraisal ◽  
Albert Hirschman ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Since its birth in 1944, the World Bank has had a strong focus on development projects. Yet, a project evaluation function was not made operational until the early 1970s. An early attempt to conceptualize project appraisal had been initiated in the 1960s by Albert Hirschman, whose undertaking raised high expectations at the Bank. Yet, Hirschman’s conclusions—published first in internal Bank reports and finally as a book in 1967—disappointed many at the Bank, primarily because they were found impractical. Hirschman attempted to offer the Bank a new Weltanschauung by transforming the Bank’s approach to project design, project management, and project appraisal. Instead, what the Bank expected from Hirschman was not a revolution, but rather an examination of the Bank’s projects and advice on how to make project design and management more measurable, more controllable, and more suitable for replication.The history of this failed collaboration gives useful insights on the unstable equilibrium between operations and evaluation within the Bank. In addition, it shows that the Bank was active in the development economics debates of the 1960s. These insights should be of interest for those development economists today who reflect on the future of the discipline and emphasize the need for a non-dogmatic approach to the study of development issues. It should also be of interest for the Bank itself, with its renewed attention to the importance of evaluation for effective development policies. The history of the practice of development economics, together with the use of archival material, can bring new perspectives that contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of this discipline.

scholarly journals Problematic Global Metrics

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Jim Church
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
News Article ◽  
Library Instruction ◽  
World Development Report ◽  
New Faculty ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Added Benefit ◽  
World Development

An added benefit of doing library instruction is you learn things from students and faculty. This knowledge informs both collection development and research consultations. It is especially interesting when a new faculty member arrives and issues a revised syllabus for a popular course. One such class at UC Berkeley is in the Global Poverty and Practice (GPP) minor, founded by Professor Ananya Roy ten years ago. Her book, Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development, makes the uncomfortable point that people and institutions profit from poverty: it is a lucrative business. But there are also those who attempt to create and influence “poverty knowledge.” The 1998 subtitle of the World Bank’s flagship publication, the World Development Report, was “Knowledge for Development.” In 2017 the World Bank wrote a feature news article (about itself) as a “knowledge institution.” There are articles that trace the history of the World Bank’s vision of itself as a “knowledge bank,” a term I find both amusing (do they charge “interest”?) and problematic. Yet a library is also a knowledge institution, and what we purchase or recommend influences the thinking and research of students and scholars.

scholarly journals Capitalism and poverty. Automation signals the final stage of capitalism. Basic income for a peaceful transition to post-capitalism

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Julio Boltvinik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Final Stage ◽  
Main Mechanism ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This article provides an impressionistic history of recent capitalism by describing its intrinsic tendencies to produce poverty and crises. It argues that the automation revolution and globalization are generalizing and globalizing poverty, especially since neoliberalism replaced Keynesianism. This picture is contradicted by the poverty statistics of the World Bank, but when these are examined carefully it is shown that the decrease in global poverty that they show is false. An examination of Marxist and mainstream theories of capitalist crises shows both that financiarization has become the main mechanism to keep afloat financial monopoly capitalism, and that conventional economic theory is impotent to deal with the current crises. Total automation is bringing to an end the wage-based society, which is incompatible with generalized automation. This in turn opens up the possibility of human emancipation from «forced», alienated work. Finally, Universal Citizen Income is regarded as an alternative that solves the aforementioned contradiction by saving and radically transforming capitalism.

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