IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/hwwadp/26380.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The World Bank as an International Financial Institution

Author

Listed:
  • Shams, Rasul

Abstract

The World Bank is a prestigious and large international financial institution. Since its foundation it has widened the scope and the size of its activities. One interpretation of what the World Bank is doing is the provision of public goods. If we take this interpretation seriously the comprehensiveness of the Bank's activity suggests that the Bank is assuming more and more the functions of a world government in the making. An alternative interpretation would look at the World Bank as a huge bureaucratic organization, acting on its own behalf. This interpretation can not be endorsed fully by the available information, but only in the sense of bureau-shaping. The Bank itself is proud of being a knowledge bank. But its actual activity is the popularization of ideas on development and not the application of research outcomes in its day-to-day operations. The most appropriate interpretation of the activity of the World Bank is that its changing scope and size is shaped heavily by pressure from different interest groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Shams, Rasul, 2004. "The World Bank as an International Financial Institution," HWWA Discussion Papers 292, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:hwwadp:26380
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19264/1/292.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anonymous, 1957. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 176-179, January.
    2. Anonymous, 1957. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 683-686, October.
    3. Anonymous, 1957. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 532-533, July.
    4. Anonymous, 1957. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 537-538, July.
    5. Gilbert,Christopher L. & Vines,David (ed.), 2000. "The World Bank," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521790956, October.
    6. C. Randall Henning, 1996. "Political Economy of the Bretton Woods Institutions: Adapting to Financial Change," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 173-193, March.
    7. Anonymous, 1957. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 387-389, April.
    8. Anonymous, 1957. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 675-678, October.
    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. Shams, Rasul, 2004. "The World Bank as an International Financial Institution," Discussion Paper Series 26380, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    2. Pierre L. Siklos, 2010. "Revisiting the Coyne Affair: a singular event that changed the course of Canadian monetary history," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(3), pages 994-1015, August.
    3. Codrina Rada & Lance Taylor, 2006. "Developing and Transition Economies in the Late 20th Century: Diverging Growth Rates, Economic Structures, and Sources of Demand," Working Papers 34, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    4. Michael Michaely, 1971. "An Over-all View of Policy Patterns," NBER Chapters, in: The Responsiveness of Demand Policies to Balance of Payments: Postwar Patterns, pages 30-70, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Monnet, Eric & Puy, Damien, 2020. "Do old habits die hard? Central banks and the Bretton Woods gold puzzle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Waliullah & Mehmood Khan Kakar & Rehmatullah Kakar & Wakeel Khan, 2010. "The Determinants of Pakistan’s Trade Balance: An ARDL Cointegration Approach," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 15(1), pages 1-26, Jan-Jun.
    7. Mr. James M. Boughton, 2002. "On the Origins of the Fleming-Mundell Model," IMF Working Papers 2002/107, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Jacques J. Polak, 1995. "Fifty Years of Exchange Rate Research and Policy at the International Monetary Fund," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(4), pages 734-761, December.
    9. Basu, Santonu, 1997. "Why institutional credit agencies are reluctant to lend to the rural poor: A theoretical analysis of the Indian rural credit market," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 267-280, February.
    10. Javier G. Gómez-Pineda, 2016. "La flotación de 1957 y la estabilidad macroeconómica," Borradores de Economia 938, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    11. Phillip Edmund Metaxas & Ernst Juerg Weber, 2016. "An Australian Contribution to International Trade Theory: The Dependent Economy Model," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(298), pages 464-497, September.
    12. Samuel Antwi & Ebenezer Fiifi Emire Atta Mills & Gifty Atta Mills & Xicang Zhao, 2012. "Risk Factors of Loan Default Payment in Ghana: A case study of Akuapem Rural Bank," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 2(4), pages 376-386, October.
    13. Michael D. Bordo, 1993. "The gold standard, Bretton Woods and other monetary regimes: a historical appraisal," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 123-191.
    14. Theuns, H.L., 1984. "The emergence of research on Third World tourism: 1945 to 1970: An introductory essay cum bibliography," Other publications TiSEM ce5cebd0-5a2a-41ff-a7a7-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Anthony Bottomley, 1980. "Western Textbook Theory and the Developing Countries," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 143-157.
    16. Vilma Deltuvaitė & Svatopluk Kapounek & Petr Koráb, 2019. "Impact of Behavioural Attention on the Households Foreign Currency Savings as a Response to the External Macroeconomic Shocks," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2019(2), pages 155-177.
    17. Tarlok Singh, 2007. "Intertemporal Optimizing Models Of Trade And Current Account Balance: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 25-64, February.
    18. Luciano Amaral & Alvaro Ferreira da Silva & Duncan Simpson, 2020. "A long International Monetary Fund intervention: Portugal 1975-1979," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp635, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    19. Mr. Luis Ignacio Jácome, 2015. "Central Banking in Latin America: From the Gold Standard to the Golden Years," IMF Working Papers 2015/060, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Klug, Adam & Smith, Gregor W., 1999. "Suez and Sterling, 1956," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 181-203, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    international lending; economic development; public goods; interest groups;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions

    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:zbw:hwwadp:26380. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hwwaade.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.