World Bank Policy Research : A Historical Overview
The World Bank is a leading intellectual institution on development. It is a world leader in analytical studies in areas including poverty measurement, delivery of social services, impact evaluation, measurement of development outcomes, internatio...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20090717171036 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4194 |
| Summary: | The World Bank is a leading intellectual
institution on development. It is a world leader in
analytical studies in areas including poverty measurement,
delivery of social services, impact evaluation, measurement
of development outcomes, international trade and migration.
It is also a leader in development data, including the
Living Standard Measurement Surveys; the enterprise surveys,
and the International Price Comparison Project. World Bank
research is resolutely empirical and policy oriented. By
both learning from past policies and operations and thinking
critically about future policies, research plays a critical
role in the formulation of policy advice to developing
countries. This paper reviews the intellectual and
institutional forces that have shaped research at the World
Bank since the latter started lending to developing
countries in the early 1950s. It provides an overview of
the shifts in development economics that have influenced
Bank research and briefly surveys the changes in research
organization, structure and approach. The first section,
after a short introduction, examines the shifts in positive
and normative views about development during the past half
century that have influenced Bank thinking. The Bank itself
has been an active participant in the rise and fall of
long-lived development dogmas about the nature of
development; the most appropriate policies and actions for
achieving it; and the respective roles of government and
markets. The second section examines how the World Bank has
adapted its organization to keep abreast of emerging issues
and produce relevant policy research of good quality. On the
one hand, the Bank has experienced several reorganizations
that have affected the research unit(s) as well as its
relationship with operational units. On the other hand, the
Bank s research units themselves have been reorganized at
several junctures, leading to new priorities and new means
of achieving them. |
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