IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csl/devewp/221.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The World Bank's Early Reflection on Development: a Development Institution or a Bank?

Author

Listed:
  • Michele Alacevich

    (University of Palermo)

Abstract

Until the late 1960s, the World Bank presented itself as an institution devoted to sound and directly productive project loans. Yet, during its very early years, some discussions developed inside the Bank regarding the possibility of issuing different types of loans, namely loans which - albeit sound - were aimed at tackling social issues ("social loans"), or not directly project-related needs for foreign currencies ("impact loans"). This paper analyzes the housing issue as a good case in point. The analysis reveals that the Bank was unwilling to lend for housing programs not because these were not sound - in fact, they were - but because they appeared to be too social-biased and not directly linked to productive investment projects, such as dams, power stations, and railroads. This early decision had a significant impact on the subsequent development of the Bank's view of policy making. In fact, it locked the institution into a particular lending pattern, and deprived it of important intellectual resources. It was not until the late 1960s that the Bank began to take social issues into consideration, rather late as opposed to other multilateral institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Michele Alacevich, 2007. "The World Bank's Early Reflection on Development: a Development Institution or a Bank?," Development Working Papers 221, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
  • Handle: RePEc:csl:devewp:221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dagliano.unimi.it/media/WP2007_221.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barber,William J., 2006. "Designs within Disorder," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521034319, November.
    2. David, Paul A., 1994. "Why are institutions the 'carriers of history'?: Path dependence and the evolution of conventions, organizations and institutions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 205-220, December.
    3. Currie, Lauchlin, 1978. "The objectives of development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 1-10, January.
    4. Javed Burki, Shahid & Ul Haq, Mahbub, 1981. "Meeting basic needs: An overview," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 167-182, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alacevich, Michele, 2008. "The World Bank's early reflections on development : a development institution or a bank?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4670, The World Bank.
    2. Michele Alacevich, 2010. "Development Agency or Bank? Vision and Strategy of the World Bank in the 50’s and 60’s," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    3. Karbowski, Adam, 2019. "Analiza otoczenia instytucjonalnego systemu tworzenia wiedzy w krajach Europy Środkowej [Analysis of the institutional environment of the knowledge subsystem in Central Europe]," MPRA Paper 95570, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2019.
    4. Schilirò, Daniele, 2005. "Economia della conoscenza,istituzioni e sviluppo economico [Knowledge-based economy, institutions and economic development]," MPRA Paper 31492, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jack High, 2011. "Dr. Anderson and the Austrians: Price formation as a cumulative process," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 199-211, June.
    6. Valérie Revest & Alessandro Sapio, 2012. "Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 179-205, July.
    7. Richard Adelstein, 2018. "Border Crossings," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2018-006, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    8. Joern Hoppmann & Alice Sakhel & Marcel Richert, 2018. "With a little help from a stranger: The impact of external change agents on corporate sustainability investments," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1052-1066, November.
    9. Kyoung‐Hee Yu & Frank Levy, 2010. "Offshoring Professional Services: Institutions and Professional Control," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(4), pages 758-783, December.
    10. H. S. Geyer, 1988. "On Urbanization in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 56(2‐3), pages 94-105, June.
    11. E. Conesa, 1998. "Organizational Dynamics and the Evolutionary Dilemma between Diversity and Standardization in Mission-Oriented Research Programmes: An Illustration," Working Papers ir98023, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    12. Marengo, Luigi, et al, 2000. "The Structure of Problem-Solving Knowledge and the Structure of Organizations," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 9(4), pages 757-788, December.
    13. Leonardo M. Klüppel & Lamar Pierce & Jason A. Snyder, 2018. "Perspective—The Deep Historical Roots of Organization and Strategy: Traumatic Shocks, Culture, and Institutions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 702-721, August.
    14. Malcolm Rutherford, 2001. "Institutional Economics: Then and Now," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 173-194, Summer.
    15. Gonzalo Caballero, 2004. "Instituciones e historia económica: enfoques y teorías institucionales," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 6(10), pages 135-157, January-J.
    16. Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo & Alessandro Nuvolari, 2019. "Institutions are neither autistic maximizers nor flocks of birds: self-organization, power and learning in human organizations," Chapters, in: Francesca Gagliardi & David Gindis (ed.), Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism, chapter 13, pages 194-213, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Virginija Januškaitė & Lina Užienė, 2018. "Intellectual Capital as a Factor of Sustainable Regional Competitiveness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-18, December.
    18. Roger J. Sandilands, 2010. "Hawtreyan ‘Credit Deadlock’ or Keynesian ‘Liquidity Trap’? Lessons for Japan from the Great Depression," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Robert Leeson (ed.), David Laidler’s Contributions to Economics, chapter 15, pages 335-371, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Porfírio, José & Jacquinet, Marc & Carrilho, Tiago, 2009. "The Concept of Agricultural District and the Question of Rural Development," Spatial and Organizational Dynamics Discussion Papers 2009-3, CIEO-Research Centre for Spatial and Organizational Dynamics, University of Algarve.
    20. Florian Noseleit, 2013. "Entrepreneurship, structural change, and economic growth," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 735-766, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csl:devewp:221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chiara Elli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/damilit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.