Reimagining the World Bank: Global Public Goods in an Age of Crisis

Abstract

Spanish

Chinese

For some time now, there has been a push for the World Bank to shift its focus toward global public goods (GPGs). These are goods that, once delivered, can be unrestrictedly consumed by most—if not all—countries on the planet. Nor are their benefits rivalrous. Moreover, the production of GPGs cannot be left to markets or individual countries, as these have suboptimal incentives to act. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, the concept of GPGs has seen a revival of sorts, with the pandemic not only striking just as multilateralism was at its lowest ebb, but also serving as irrefutable proof that the world needs international collaboration now more than ever. Multilateral institutions, and in particular the World Bank—a leading global institution with global membership—can rightfully be regarded as a possible solution to many global challenges. Based on interviews conducted with World Bank senior staff, as well as numerous experts, this article discusses arguments in favor of such a strategic shift. While there are legitimate claims for the Bank becoming a full-fledged provider of GPGs, the institution’s historical roots and operational constraints make this an unlikely prospect.

Keywords

World Bank Global Public Goods GPGs Multilateral Institutions International Organizations Global Governance International Collaboration Global Public Policy COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis of Multilateralism

Disenchantment with World Bank policies is nothing new (Collier 1997; Easterly 2001; Stiglitz 2003; Wade 2002; Wood and Lockwood 1999; Woods 2003), nor are calls for reforming the institution. In 2012, Jeffrey Sachs argued that the Bank was lacking “a clear direction . . . has cut a lot of ribbons on development projects, but has solved far too few global problems” and “has not been strategic or agile enough to be an effective agent of change” (Sachs 2012). This is reflective of the doubt that has been cast on the institution’s relevance, with some advocating a strategic shift toward supplying global public goods (GPGs). Scholars grouped around the Center for Global Development have been particularly vocal in such advocacy (see, for example, Birdsall and Diofasi 2015; Birdsall and Leo 2011; Birdsall and Morris 2016; Birdsall and Subramanian 2007). In their view, if a profound change of direction is not embarked upon, the Bank risks “becoming simply another aid agency managed by the rich countries to provide assistance to the poorest countries” (Birdsall and Subramanian 2007, 4). The COVID-19 crisis, now considered a wake-up call to multilateralism (Guterres 2020), has only added to such pressure, with rich countries channeling resources and attention inward rather than displaying any particular willingness to combat the pandemic outside their borders. As a result, the time may finally have come for the World Bank to venture beyond its traditional role.

There are a number of reasons why GPGs may serve this purpose. First, as a leading global institution with universal membership (189 countries) and 75 years of expertise, the Bank is arguably well suited to pursuing common goals and boosting shared prosperity (Kanbur 2017). This is reflected in the July 1944 speech of Henry Morgenthau Jr. at the Bretton Woods conference (Wolf 2019, 5), where the Bank was established: “We have come to recognise that the wisest and most effective way to protect our national interests is through international co-operation—that is to say, through united effort for the attainment of common goals.”

Second, drawing on the Samuelsonian theory of public goods discussed in detail later, GPGs will be structurally undersupplied if decisions about their production are left to markets or individual countries, which have suboptimal incentives to spend. This is where an institution coordinating global efforts, such as the World Bank, may enjoy substantial gains (Clemens and Kremer 2016).

Third, GPGs may be a way of legitimizing (or reinforcing) the institution’s mandate in times when multilateralism is facing extreme levels of strain. Thus, GPGs potentially offer an escape route from the legitimacy trap and irrelevance crisis that have haunted the World Bank (Kanbur 2017). In fact, other international organizations have followed a similar path, acknowledging international public goods (both GPGs and regional public goods) as the relevant approach, given multiple existing and emerging cross-border challenges. Strong references to international public goods can be found in the work of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and now, in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, also the World Health Organization (WHO).

The objective of this article is to assess the World Bank’s capacity as a provider of GPGs and, in doing so, contribute to wider discussions of whether and how institutions such as the Bank are equipped to increase engagement with cross-border challenges at the expense of their traditional repertoires. The article offers two potential intellectual ‘breeding grounds’—the current state of multilateralism and the subsidiarity principle—as well as two critical practical limitations: the Bank’s mandate and bureaucratic incentives. As the Bank does not report on GPG-related activity, this article will deal only in passing with data, and instead focus on qualitative assessment. To this end, the empirical base for this study consists of rich and varied interview material drawn from 11 interviews that were conducted in October 2018 with three sets of experts: (1) senior officials in the World Bank, both from the research staff and from the Board; (2) senior researchers at the Center for Development Group, which has been instrumental in spearheading the GPGs debate; and (3) senior officials from other multilateral institutions (IMF, IADB). The purpose of choosing such informants was to investigate whether the official narrative signaling the Bank’s strong commitment to GPGs was confirmed by those with “insider knowledge.” This approach, in our view, offers an original perspective on the institution’s imagining in the current global division of labor.

The article is structured as follows. First, we review the concept of GPGs. Second, we proceed to look briefly at the World Bank’s record in supplying such goods. Third follows a discussion of breeding grounds—that is, reasons why the Bank should (or might) consider a strategic shift. Fourth, we analyze fundamental limitations constraining the Bank’s practice. The final section offers a number of conclusions.

The Concept of GPGs

The concept of GPGs is widely employed in the domain of global public policy, yet its theoretical foundations are very much rooted in the microeconomic theory of national public goods. The theory was pioneered by Paul Samuelson (1954, 1955), who has widely been hailed as the concept’s godfather, though Richard Musgrave (1959)—whose contribution to the field has been somewhat obscured by Samualson’s fame—is regarded by some as being even more influential (Desmarais-Tremblay 2014; Pickhardt 2006).

Public goods can most easily be defined by stating what they are not. First, they are not rivalrous—that is, consumption of a public good by one person neither diminishes nor hinders consumption of that good by another person. Second, they are not excludable, meaning that once the good has been provided it is impossible (or impractical: for example, too expensive) to exclude other people from consuming it, which leads to the problem of free riding which is discussed shortly. In reality, pure public goods are extremely rare, and considered to be “unicorns” or “mythical beasts,” to quote Cornes and Sandler (1994). Classic examples of such goods include a lighthouse, clean air, an unpatented knowledge, or a road sign. Most public goods are in fact “impure” public goods—that is, they possess only one of the two necessary characteristics (non-rivalry or non-excludability).

Although the theory of public goods outlined by Samuelson is somewhat technical and subject to mathematical rigor—for which Samuelson has been criticized (see Enke 1955)—scholars have long argued that the characteristics of such goods are not carved in stone. Most famously, James Buchanan (1968, 5) advocated an alternative view of public goods as merely “goods demanded and supplied through political institutions.” That said, whether a good is public or not is subject to collective demand, the political process, and negotiations within society. Furthermore, many goods “become” public rather than “being” public, meaning they are a social construct dependent on institutional context (Cowen 1985). For this and other reasons, creating a clear division between private and public goods is often considered “a false dichotomy” (Grayson 2001, 235)—a remark that is of fundamental importance to GPGs.

According to one proposition, GPGs can be seen as national public goods that have “gone global” due to globalization, or at least national public goods that have some international cooperation component (Kaul et al. 2003, 80). Examples here includes climate stability, knowledge, global health, preserving biodiversity, and multilateral trade rules. Aside from these “national going global” public goods, Kaul and others (2003, 100) point to two other types of GDGs: (1) natural global commons (e.g., the ozone layer, solar energy, or orbital space), which are global by nature and have existed without human interference (importantly, these public goods are produced through protecting them); and (2) what they call “conditions and policy outcomes” (e.g., world peace or global health). The second of these, while the more abstract, also requires national-level action to produce them. In fact, most global challenges today have GPG (or, rather, global public bad) characteristics. Sandler also observes that most GPGs are intergenerational (they affect future generations), further complicating their production process and the collective action required (Sandler 1997). Some GPGs (such as controlling climate change) require continuous attention from the wider international community and are provided in incremental fashion, while others are discrete and require a sufficiently lumpy supply to effectively deliver them (such as the discovery of a vaccine). Others still can be framed as “binary”—they are either provided or not (say, the eradication of a disease) (Barrett 2006, 9).

The concept of GPGs reached its heyday in the 1990s, a period during which the global economy underwent unprecedented changes, including growing global interdependence, the crisis of the nation-state, and the “compression” of time and space that occurred due to rapid technological progress. Globalization, despite having a multitude of benign effects, also gave rise to a number of critical cross-border challenges. It was with this in mind that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, addressing international cooperation in 1999, famously called GPGs “a missing variable in the equation.” The discourse about GPGs is usually credited to the United Nations Development Fund, which was behind the canonical book edited by Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, and Marc A. Stern(Kaul, Grubnerg, and Stern 1999). Nevertheless, scholars had recognized and studied GPGs prior to this. For instance, Charles Kindleberger (1986) discussed dilemmas regarding the provision of transnational public goods in the world order from the perspective of realists and institutionalists. Joseph Stiglitz (1995), meanwhile, in describing the phenomenon of international public goods, named five examples: (1) international economic stability, (2) international security, (3) global environment, (4) international humanitarian assistance, and (5) knowledge. The field has also been heavily influenced by the work of Todd Sandler (1997, 1998, 2009), who most notably introduced the groundbreaking concept of aggregation technologies in producing GPGs (Sandler 2003).

While the concept may seem intuitive and intellectually compelling, its theoretical and conceptual foundations have been subject to criticism, with some scholars arguing that GPGs are better suited to a political manifesto than the scientific realm (see Long and Woolley 2009). Arguably, the microeconomic, Samuelsonian roots of GPGs have been used to legitimize what is often merely a loosely related set of ideas, with many scholars choosing to relax these microeconomic assumptions. Long and Wooley lament that discussion lacks analytical rigor and see GPGs as nothing more than a “rhetorical device” and “catch-all” phrase. They also claim that GPGs are attractive precisely because they are abstract, with the debate surrounding them seeking to persuade rather than explain (Long and Woolley 2009, 117).

The World Bank Meets GPGs

The concept of GPGs is by no means alien to the World Bank—it has resonated with the Board and been used on multiple occasions in official communication. Despite this, little effort has been made to dig deeper, either in a conceptual or—more importantly—operational sense. In fact, the latter can best be characterized as “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” (Senior Manager, World Bank, interview September 12, 2018). A common standard or exact definition for GPGs has yet to be set out, which is unsurprising given that academics themselves struggle to agree on what GPGs actually are, as well as how to render this elusive term useful in addressing the real-world problems (Morrissey, te Velde, and Hewitt 2002). Even less surprising is that the World Bank makes no attempt to report on GPGs nor quantify its spending on them on a systematic basis.

All our informants confirmed that the “global public goods” term is used liberally, if not arbitrarily, to encompass a diverse array of the Bank’s operations, activities, programs, and initiatives. This view is shared by Kapur (2002), who laments that, “in seeking to reinvent the Bank’s public image, its management and staff may tend to label all kinds of activities or ‘networks’ as GPGs, meriting involvement on the basis of the moral claims that public goods invoke, and their ready slogan-appeal for Northern taxpayers.” Most importantly, upon closer examination many of the Bank’s services that potentially fall into the GPGs category should rather be seen as post-factum GPGs—products or activities the GPGs label has been attached to at a later stage. Put differently, these products and activities were never originally intended as GPGs, but now happen to conceptually fit the description. Others are what Kapur (2002, 349) calls “Potemkin-like” GPGs—that is, more about facade than any organic embracing of the GPGs concept by the Bank.

Using the Bank’s own terminology (World Bank 2001, 133), GPGs can be linked to two types of activities: (1) “core” activities that, conceptually, remain close to the scholarly definition of GPGs (i.e., they are directed at a global audience or “floated in the global ether” without any particular country in mind, with benefits that can be enjoyed by all); and (2) “complementary” activities which aim at creating valuable national public goods and preparing countries for the consumption of international public goods. It is therefore important to look at the supply of GPGs in this two-tracked manner. As argued by other scholars (see Kaul, Grubnerg, and Stern 1999), in order to be effective, production of GPGs should occur at the national, regional, and global level. This approach is in line with the measure of global health spending proposed by Marco Schäferhoff and others (2015), which divides donor funding for health into global functions and country-specific aid.

Most of the Bank’s provision of GPGs falls into the “complementary” activities category—a result of the mandate bestowed on the institution by its founding fathers discussed a little later. The Bank’s basic operational modality is a bilateral loan which it provides to members either on concessional (International Development Association, IDA) or non-concessional (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) terms. In 2018, the World Bank Group disbursed over 47 billion USD across 329 projects (World Bank 2018, 18). A large proportion of those loans can justifiably be characterized as “preparing countries to consume international public goods,” and thus fit a wider concept of GPGs. Such loans can be found in a number of areas identified by the Bank in its seminal “Global Public Goods” report (World Bank 2007). One relevant example is the Climate-Smart Agriculture project in Vietnam, which aimed, among other things, to address the problem of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in irrigated rice farming. The project reduced GHG emissions by 30–35 percent, the equivalent of six tons of carbon dioxide per hectare (World Bank 2016, 43). Another example is AFRRI-East Africa Public Health Laboratory Networking Project (Project ID: P111556) which helped build 40 well-equipped public health laboratories with trained personnel and enhanced diagnostic and surveillance capacity, now ready to be leveraged against COVID-19 (World Bank 2020).

The interviews reveal two major World Bank activities that can be considered “core” activities: (1) trust funds (including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR]); and (2) knowledge produced by the institution. The Bank manages and coordinates (through providing fiduciary, balance sheet, legal, accounting, systems, and reporting support) hundreds of trust funds—extra-budgetary resources from external donors—from which US$ 2.8 billion was disbursed in 2018 (World Bank 2019). A relatively small proportion of these are devoted to addressing global challenges, with the ones focused on global development initiatives or partnerships—which also happen to be the largest—called Financial Intermediary Funds (FIFs). The Global Environmental Facility is arguably the most well-known and relevant FIF, while others include the Clean Technology Fund, the CGIAR Fund, the International Finance Facility for Immunization, the Strategic Climate Fund, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

There are a number of problems with conceptualizing trust funds as World Bank-led GPGs. First, they are mostly ad hoc ‘begging bowl’—as aptly described by Nancy Birdsall (2018a)—modalities. Not only are they relatively small but, more importantly, they remain at the mercy of rich donors, and thus can hardly be considered part of a long-term, sustainable solution. Though trust funds allow additional activities, they also “quietly muddle institutional priorities, further weakening governance” (Kapur 2019). Trust funds are not part of the Bank’s core repertoire; rather, they are merely housed by the Bank, which has a marginal contribution to shaping their priorities and guidelines. In addition, while trust funds related to GPGs involve pooling money for a collective good, implementation happens mostly through “bread and butter” country operations (i.e., loan projects). Among FIFs, CGIAR is somewhat unusual. Ever since its establishment in 1971 as a consortium grouping of 15 research centers involved in conducting basic agricultural research and improving global food safety, CGIAR has been funded directly from the World Bank’s administrative budget (through the Development Grant Facility). This support has dwindled over recent years, and now amounts to a mere US$ 30 million annually.

Conceptually, the World Bank’s most clear-cut GPGs asset is production of state-of-the-art research, including providing various types of publications and data for public consumption. Despite research and knowledge production being viewed by some staff as a “luxury” (Squire 2006), the institution’s work as a “knowledge bank” (Gilbert, Powell, and Vines 1999; Ravallion 2016), first articulated by Bank president James Wolfensohn in 1996, has been widely recognized. As of May 2020, the World Bank Group was second in the RePEc/IDEAS ranking for the past ten years (after the IMF). In a seminal paper, Gavin and Rodrik (1995, 332) claim that “the [World] Bank is the single most important external source of ideas and advice to developing-country policymakers.” Flagship reports such as Global Economic Prospects (GEP), the Doing Business Reports (DBR), and particularly the World Development Report (WDR)—which reportedly absorbs 10 percent of the Bank’s research staff capacity (Banerjee et al. 2006)—demonstrate how the Bank operates as a “one-stop shop for development data” (Ravallion 2016, 84), supplying development-related, open-access knowledge that can largely be consumed in a non-rivalrous and non-excludable fashion. Even so, the quality of the World Bank-produced knowledge is questionable (Banerjee et al. 2006; Jerven 2013), the real demand for it shockingly scant (Doemeland and Trevino 2011), and its relevance to solving global problems debatable.

The Subsidiarity Principle and Division of Labor

One reason why some people have encouraged the World Bank to shift its focus to addressing global challenges (GPGs included) is the principle of subsidiarity. The idea of subsidiarity in multilateral development banking has been aired by a number of scholars, particularly Ravi Kanbur (see Kanbur 2002, 2004; Kanbur, Sandler, and Morrison 1999). In a nutshell, it implies that the institution closest to a cross-border problem in terms of geographical and sectoral mandate should be tasked with handling it. Put differently, “a global public good would be allocated optimally by a global institution, while a regional public good would be better provided by regional institutions” (Kanbur 2004, 173). According to some, this principle could govern the division of labor among various multilateral development banks, in effect offering justification for steering the World Bank’s attention to GPGs and away from the national private and public goods it currently finances through loans.

There are specific arguments that make the idea of subsidiarity compelling. While it may be difficult to beat the World Bank when it comes to knowledge and technical expertise, one of the competitive advantages enjoyed by regional institutions is, supposedly, that “they know their clients better.” Moreover, they better understand the regional context, political nuances, and cultural features of the countries involved, which may be critical when it comes to landing a deal (Director, IADB, interview, September 12, 2018). According to this position, the ADB and African Development Bank (AfDB) are better suited to act as honest brokers in regional dealings than the World Bank which, despite possessing technical skills, lacks local legitimacy. The sense of ownership developing countries have in regional banks, vis-à-vis global institutions such as the World Bank, should not be underestimated, especially when it is absolutely central to institutional and/or politically difficult reforms (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018). Also, by applying the subsidiarity principle, it is possible to “save transaction costs by limiting participants, drawing on shared culture, and fostering repeated interactions, as well as capitalizing on ‘common values and benefits’” (Kanbur 2004, 173).

Despite being intellectually enticing, the utility of the subsidiary principle in the context of multilateral banking is open to challenge. First of all, there is the question of expertise, with regional organizations often lacking the level of knowhow developed by the World Bank over its 75-plus years. Furthermore, regional organizations often lack the political clout needed to deliver on regional projects. Thus, if one compares the World Bank and the AfDB, the “AfDB’s expertise is limited by the fact that this is AfDB” (Senior Official, World Bank, interview, September 11, 2018). The second point pertains to governance. Using the example of the AfDB, Birdsall (2018b) notes that it is less competitive than the World Bank in raising new capital and contributions to finance its operations, therefore shareholders (being also shareholders of the World Bank) lack incentives to maximize its potential. The middle-ground argument holds that subsidiarity, which is originally derived from the administrative lexis, should not be applied in too literal a fashion to the world of banking and development. This is for two reasons. First, regional and local development banks are simply not credible enough to do the World Bank’s work. More than this, applying subsidiarity to development banking actually misunderstands what development banks really do (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 19, 2018). Second, a degree of competition among development banks—not in the sense of private market competition with a financial bottom line, but rather in the sense of poor countries having a wider range of options to choose from—is essentially healthy (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 19, 2018; see also Kopiński and Sun 2014). Therefore, as pointed out by another interviewee: “if you take subsidiarity to the limit, and don’t think it through, you would not have the World Bank doing anything but global public goods—that would be absurd” (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018).

Multilateral Crisis and the New Kids on the Block

The World Bank’s shift toward GPGs may be considered an exit strategy from an increasingly crowded field. For the majority of the post-war period, the Bank enjoyed a near-monopoly in two areas: finance and knowledge. Though the Bank retains its prominence in development knowledge, the business of development finance has become more competitive as a result of a range of new institutions being set up by emerging countries (Güven 2017a, 2017b). These consist either of new multilateral banks, such as the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) (Wan 2016), or national, state-owned behemoths, such as the China Development Bank and the China Exim Bank (Kopiński and Sun 2014), which have allegedly (at least in some years) provided more loans to Africa than the World Bank (Dyer, Anderlini, and Sender 2011). This situation has been substantially boosted by access to financial markets and private capital, including Eurobonds and various foundations, most notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2012, World Bank lending represented only about 5 percent of aggregate private capital flows to developing countries (Ravallion 2016, 78). It may be assumed that, since the World Bank’s budget is not limitless, its share of global development aid will gradually shrink as the congestion in development finance increases. Ravi Kanbur (2017) argues that the establishment of institutions such as the NDB and AIIB can actually be attributed to the infrastructure deficit in World Bank member countries that the Bank is unable to bridge. In fact, despite institutions such as AIIB being intended—at least officially—to complement the World Bank, rather than rival or replicate it (Anderlini 2016; Ikenberry and Lim 2017), their proliferation is a clear indication of the frustration felt by China and other emerging economies regarding the institution’s governance structure. If their position inside the Bank was stronger and their influence over its direction greater, the impetus to float alternative multilateral projects (discussed in the next section) would be lessened, if not removed.

The potential shift should also be considered in the context of the multilateral crisis the world has been trapped in for some time now; a crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic has made even more glaring. The Trump administration—which waged open war against the WHO, eventually suspending its membership, and blocked the appointment of judges to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) dispute-resolution body—was never likely to endorse a strategic shift toward the GPGs agenda inside the World Bank. However, this does not necessarily mean it would oppose the shift either, especially if the change was championed by the Bank’s big net creditors. Contrary to the prevailing narrative and such alarming headlines as “John Bolton Wants to Shut Down the World Bank” (Morris 2018), or initial fears that David Malpass might turn the institution into “an organ promoting Mr. Trump’s nationalist agenda” (Rappeport and Friedman 2019), the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress was reasonably supportive—albeit quietly—for change (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018). As one senior Bank official argued, this increasing political vacuum, combined with rising nationalisms in many parts of the world, potentially strengthens and makes more desirable the role of international organization in promoting multilateralism. The crisis of multilateralism may actually trigger an impulse to mobilize and do more (Senior Official, World Bank, interview, September 11, 2018). Though the COVID-19 crisis may have served to further expose the crisis of multilateralism, it is now almost certain that, once the dust has settled, we will see an unprecedented demand for international cooperation and provision of GPGs. The perfect storm currently sweeping the world may also serve as a catalyst for the World Bank’s transformation, or at least some rethinking of its current role.

The World Bank’s Mandate

The World Bank was originally set up to deliver public and private goods at a national level (lifting a person from poverty is, after all, a private good, yet with public consequences), rather than to address cross-border issues, let alone handle global public policy. Its mandate veers away from phenomena which we today might term GPGs. Pandemics, climate change, nuclear waste, and other global public bads were not among the founding fathers’ concerns, either because they did not exist or because they did not fit within the ideological constraints of the Bretton Woods institutions. Instead, the Bank assisted its members in, first, post-war reconstruction, and then development. Thus, while its mission was global, its business model relied heavily on helping individual countries, without international spillovers in mind. It is no wonder, then, that throughout the Bank’s history, obtaining membership has been motivated by the desire to derive individual benefit rather than sharing such benefits with others. The common mindset among members has been that “the Bank is there for their benefit, not the benefit of the global community” (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 19, 2018), meaning that capturing the full benefits of the Bank’s programs and projects has become an institutional norm. The consequences of this incentive structure are severe. For the World Bank to deliver on the GPGs agenda, it would require borrowing countries to sacrifice their own development. This may explain why there is so much resistance to the idea of GPGs from the Bank’s shareholders and Board members (unless their provision is financed from additional funds).

The above may lead to an assumption that the rich member countries are the least interested in providing GPGs, as this would place the financial burden disproportionately on their shoulders and let poorer members free ride on the system. This, however, is not really reflected by the World Bank’s inner dynamics. In a private conversation, the former Bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, reportedly asserted that the biggest opponents of a shift toward GPGs inside the Bank are the poorest countries, who “see it as taking away some fixed amount of money that would go to them” (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018). However, there are other members of the Bank that are not enthusiasts of GPGs either, albeit for different reasons. Middle-income countries do not like the idea of expanding the GPGs agenda as this could raise their interest costs (if extra funds come from IBRD income). Rich members, meanwhile, do not really need it (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018), as they can single-handedly spearhead their global agenda through trust funds.

The mandate bestowed on the World Bank severely limits its modalities. In a strictly statutory sense, the Bank’s role is that of financial intermediary or, as Birdsall and Subramanian (2007) term it, a “reluctant lender.” It has fulfilled this role by borrowing money on the financial markets and lending it to member countries. Thus, sovereign loans have been at the core of the Bank’s model since its earliest days. However, this standard instrument—currently used by the World Bank either in the form of investment project financing (IPF) or development policy financing (DPF)—is ill-suited to providing GPGs, as “it is difficult for the World Bank to ask a country to repay any substantial part of a loan if the benefits are primarily for other countries” (Kremer 2005). Whereas individual country loans are relatively straightforward, regional loans—let alone financial arrangements involving a larger number of countries—are problematic to structure, operate, and guarantee. Furthermore, they have huge transaction costs and pose considerable difficulties in terms of, among other things, negotiating terms and synchronizing project phases. As such, they are rarely practiced, though the World Bank has experimented with regional loans in the past, most famously in the case of the Indus River Project (Senior Official, World Bank, interview, September 11, 2018). Most loans classified as “multi-country loans” are in fact multi-country in name only, as they are either loans to multinational entities, such as regional banks, or individually coordinated loans to a number of participating sovereign borrowers (Ferroni 2001, 20). There are two strong arguments that make doing away with the current loans-based system difficult: (1) more GPGs provision would require extra capital, and this is hard to sell to member countries; and (2) more GPGs provision without extra capital implies cutting available budgets for developing countries, which again would not be politically feasible. Either way, any serious discussion about GPGs risks “sending the shareholders to their entrenched battle lines” (Morris and Gleave 2015, 27).

Given the Bank’s rigid mandate, some experts have been arguing for a major overhaul—“a massive shake-up,” (see Igoe 2016)—of the organization as the only feasible strategy for increasing its engagement in GPGs provision. Larry Summer, for instance, observed that the World Bank “reforms have been largely directed at internal structure for effectiveness, not at redefinition of mission, and our focus is on redefinition of mission” (Igoe 2016). Thus, an explicit new mandate would be required to place GPGs as the institution’s major priority (Birdsall and Morris 2016). This radical scenario of organizational reinvention may be unrealistic in the short to medium term, or as others postulate, not really necessary. Instead, the current arrangements of having trust funds “could be strengthened and streamlined, by having an equivalent of another IDA with another board that would be a global public goods facility” (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 19, 2018), or as Nancy Birdsall (2018a) puts it: “this century’s IDA-type response to this century’s new global challenges.” Any such reform would, however, require a major breakthrough in the leadership and/or two or more powerful members championing the change. Whichever path the Bank pursues, it must have a clear mandate, rather than stretching its existing mandate to cover GPGs by extension.

Shifting toward GPGs would be greatly facilitated by, if not conditional on, a more collective governance structure. As argued by, for instance, Jonathan R. Strand and Kenneth J. Retzl (2016) the World Bank’s weighted voting system—(declaratively) based on the relative economic position of member states—is at odds with principles of good governance. Ironically, though the Bank endorses the idea of good governance, it largely fails to put such principles into practice itself (Woods 2000). At a minimum, greater collective governance would require giving developing countries, particularly middle-income countries, more voice and influence over the Bank’s policies. This would inevitably weaken the position of the organization’s major shareholders, particularly the United States, which still holds the de facto veto power.

In line with the reforms proposed for the World Bank by the Zedillo Commission in 2009, the 2010 “voice reform” appeared to be a step in the right direction, increasing the share of voices for developing and transition countries (DTCs) from 42.6 to 47.19 percent, while decreasing developed countries’ share from 57.40 to 52.81 percent (Vestergaard and Wade 2013). The reform also created a new (25th) Executive Director for Sub-Saharan African countries. However, what was heralded as a substantial shift turned out in fact to be marginal change (Vestergaard and Wade 2013), or “little more than old wine in new bottles” (Strand and Retzl 2016, 438). The DTC category includes several high-income countries (such as South Korea and Singapore) that do not borrow from the Bank, with the share of developing countries rising to only 38.38 percent if they are excluded (Vestergaard and Wade 2013). In the absence of profound reforms toward a more balanced governance structure that goes beyond voice realignment, the frustration of borrowing countries, which has arguably contributed to setting up parallel multilateral institutions such as AIID and NDB, will continue unabated.

Voting realignment in favor of borrowers may not be enough, however, with the taking on of greater responsibility for provision of GPGs potentially requiring even more fundamental reforms. As proposed by the Center for Global Development panel (Birdsall and Morris 2016), in order to fully realize its potential as a GPG provider, the Bank would require a completely new governance structure. This would be different from both the IBRD, as financing GPGs is less bank-like and more philanthropic, and the IDA, as the IDA-eligible countries’ fear that the GPGs agenda would affect donors’ contributions (i.e., IDA replenishments). To enhance its legitimacy, this new GPG-arm could be located in one developing country.

Ultimately, GPGs require multi-country consensus building, which in turn requires an adequate governance structure that is rooted not in 1944 but present-day realities (Kanbur 2017).

Bureaucracy and the Culture of Disbursement

Bureaucracy is, next to the interests of the most powerful members and “economic ideas, fashions, and orthodoxies,” the most critical force in determining the development of the Bretton Woods institutions (Woods 2006, 180). Naturally, it is also critical to understanding why a transition toward becoming a provider of GPGs is problematic. The World Bank’s level of bureaucracy is legendary and is reflected in the massive number of staff it employs (over 10,000) relative to loans disbursed, as well as its high administrative costs. Kapur (2015), in commenting on staff numbers, observes that the European Investment Bank (EIB) gave out twice as many loans as the Bank in 2015, despite the latter employing six times as many people. Over the years, the World Bank has undergone multiple organizational reshuffles. These have often been initiated ad hoc in response to the demands of particular members or vested interests inside and outside the Bank and are usually driven by net creditors. This has led to an ever more complex organizational structure, with the incorporation of new areas and sectors repeatedly provoking accusations of mission creep. As a result, the World Bank has evolved into an institution that strives to please all possible stakeholders and be “everything to everyone” (Birdsall and Subramanian 2007, 2). Bureaucratic inflation has given birth to such entities as an Office of Internal Audit, an Independent Evaluation Office, an Inspection Panel, a Chief Ethics Officer, an Office of Mediation, Peer Review panels, and an Office of Institutional Integrity—allegedly as a strategy aimed at deflecting external pressure imposed on the Bank. Kapur (2015) poetically compares the institution to “an old ship” that over the course of seven decades has accumulated “all kinds of barnacles—sticky budgetary accretions and transaction costs—on its hull, steadily impeding its speed and performance.” This bureaucratic inertia is at odds with global threats, as many of them, particularly global pandemics such as COVID-19, are unpredictable and volatile, requiring a swift response to an emerging crisis. This is one of the conclusions of, for instance, the IEG assessment of the Bank’s response to the avian flu pandemic (IEG 2013).

An unintended consequence of the Bank’s model being organized around disbursing funds to member countries is its infamous “lending culture” (Easterly 2002; Ravallion 2016) or, put more harshly, the “Bank’s management obsession with lending” (Berkman 2008). The problem was officially diagnosed as early as 1992 in the so-called “Wapenhaus Report” (World Bank 1992). Despite some positive change, this model of “pushing loans” and “moving money” continues to be a part the organizational culture. As a result, aid volumes remain more important than benefits to end users (Easterly 2002). The Bank’s internal incentives—such as attaching special importance to meeting quantitative lending targets or promotion to senior positions being based on the amount of money disbursed—help ensure that this model thrives. Since, as has been claimed, individual country loans are here to stay and so will continue to form part of the Bank’s core mandate, the lending culture may be seen as yet another issue stifling the institution’s efforts to move into a new field. If one also takes into account the low morale of Bank staff (Kapur 2015) and the risk-aversion embedded in the institution’s DNA, it becomes clear why resistance to change is so fierce.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example of how our increasingly interconnected world has become a breeding ground for global threats. It has not only delivered a wake-up call for multilateralism, but it has also created fresh demand for international collaboration and a revival of sorts for the idea of GPGs. Many, if not all, international organizations have embraced the GPGs agenda, either because they sense an opportunity in this promising new field (which may help in maintaining their ongoing relevance), or because they have realized their mission may be compromised, or successes reversed, if they simply continue with “business as usual.” The IMF, for instance, claims, that its financial assistance to fragile countries in Africa should effectively be considered an international public good, as it mitigates the risk of conflict spillover (Interview with a Director at IMF, September 10, 2018), while the IADB awards funds to projects that “create together a regional public good,” such as those involving the joint purchase of expensive drugs or portability of pensions (Interview with a Manager of at IADB, September 12, 2018, Washington DC). It is the World Bank in particular, though, that has been pushed to shift its attention away from individual country problems toward cross-border phenomena. It is considered a strong candidate for the provision of GPGs—perhaps “the best the world ever has had” (Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development, interview, September 20, 2018).

This article establishes three things. First, the concept of GPGs is not alien to the World Bank, and the institution has in its inventory many products and services that fall under this category, even if most are only “complementary” in nature (i.e., loans that help countries become better prepared for consumption of GPGs). From a theoretical standpoint, these are necessary to address global public bads, with the COVID-19 outbreak being a good case in point here. Many of the Bank’s COVID-related activities, including the suspension of debt payments by IDA countries and support for over-stretched health systems in developing countries, are tailored to these ends—namely, to leave no country behind in the pandemic, because as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (2020) points out, “No one will be safe until the whole world is safe.” Only knowledge and research produced by the Bank, as well as funding for CGIAR from the administrative budget, may be counted as GPGs-related “core” activities, whereas trust funds—despite having GPGs characteristics—are not a part of the Bank’s repertoire in a formal sense.

Second, there are legitimate arguments in favor of the Bank embracing GPGs, either as part of its current mandate or as part of a new, comprehensively overhauled, mandate. The latter scenario is somewhat unrealistic at this point, though it has many advocates in the development community. The subsidiarity principle should not be taken at face value, as it in all likelihood offers an imperfect guide to the division of labor in the development aid community. Nevertheless, it provides important clues as to how tomorrow’s aid system can be organized to better address issues on various levels. This is against a backdrop of development aid becoming an increasingly crowded field, prompting a need to engage in some form of specialization. In this regard, no institution has more experience and appears better prepared to deal with global threats than the World Bank, with its 75-plus years of expertise. Also, contrary to gloomy predictions regarding multilateralism, which has been enduring its worst crisis in many decades, the COVID-19 crisis can be seen as an opportunity for international institutions to prove their relevance.

Third, though there are reasonable arguments as to why the World Bank should reinvent itself and engage more in the systemic production of GPGs, there are fundamental limitations to such thinking. Since its establishment, the World Bank’s mandate has been clear that the institution is to serve its members rather than the wider international community or a “global audience.” From the perspective of the Bank’s members, unless new sources of finance are found, further involvement in GPGs will mean less funds are available to address national development needs. Added to this, the World Bank’s modus operandi is still based on individual country loans, which are ill-suited to dealing with international spillovers and cross-border challenges. Also, the Bank’s bureaucratic culture and incentive system, based on lending and inertia, are not particularly conducive to the strategic shift that a GPGs approach requires.

To sum up, there are relevant arguments in favor of the World Bank ceasing to be a traditional lending institution, and instead fully committing its resources and intellectual power to provision of GPGs. However, the Bank’s rigid mandate and the political economy underpinning its governing structure, combined with an entrenched lending culture, make this an unlikely prospect unless serious reform is pursued.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to extend their thanks and appreciation to all the persons who willingly accepted to participate in the interviews conducted in Washington, D.C. in September 2018 for their time, kindness, and valuable contributions. We would also like to thank the three anonymous referees at World Affairs and the participants of a panel at the 9th Biennial Oceanic Conference on International Studies organized by the Australia National University for their helpful comments and suggestions. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research for this paper has been generously funded by the National Science Center, Poland (OPUS 11, Grant No. UMO-2016/21/B/HS5/02047).

ORCID iD

Dominik Kopiński

About the Authors

Dominik Kopiński is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Economics at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. A cofounder of the Polish Center for African Studies, he has published extensively on Sub-Saharan Africa, development aid, China–Africa relations, natural resource policies, and global public goods. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and his work has appeared in African Affairs, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Africa Spectrum, Global Governance, and Third World Quarterly. His recent publications include the book Global Public Goods and International Organizations: The Case of World Bank and IMF (Difin, 2020).

Marek Wróblewski holds PhD (1999) and Habilitation (2010) degrees in economics from the Faculty of Economics, Wroclaw University of Economics. He is currently the Head of International Economics Department at the Institute of International Studies of the University of Wroclaw. His research interests focus on international trade and finance, global economic governance and global public goods, regional development, and financial crises. He has taught at numerous European and U.S. universities. He has received many prestigious grants and scholarships (e.g., U.S. Fulbright Commission, European Commission Scholarship Program under VI FP). Currently, he is the Permanent Representative of Poland to the World Trade Organization.

References

Anderlini

Jamil

. 2016. “Lunch with the FT: Jin Liqun.” Financial Times, April 22. https://www.ft.com/content/0564ce1e-06e3-11e6-a70d-4e39ac32c284 (accessed April 8, 2021).

Banerjee

Abhijit

Deaton

Angus

Lustig

Nora

Rogoff

Kenneth

. 2006. An Evaluation of World Bank Research, 1998 – 2005. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Barrett

Scott

. 2006. “Critical Factors for Providing Transnational Public Goods.” Expert Paper Series Seven: Cross-Cutting Issues, Stockholm, Sweden.

Berkman

Steve

. 2008. The World Bank and the Gods of Lending. Sterling: Kumarian Press.

Birdsall

Nancy

. 2018a. “On Global Public Goods: It’s Not Big Money but It’s a Big Breakthrough.” May 2. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

Birdsall

Nancy

. 2018b. “‘The Dilemma of the African Development Bank: Does Governance Matter for the Long-Run Financing of the MDBs?” Working Paper 498. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

Birdsall

Nancy

Diofasi

Anna

. 2015. “Global Public Goods for Development: How Much and What For.” Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

Birdsall

Nancy

Leo

Benjamin

. 2011. “Find Me the Money: Financing Climate and Other Global Public Goods.” Working Paper No. 248. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

Birdsall

Nancy

Morris

Scott

. 2016. “Multilateral Development Banking for this Century’s Development Challenges: Five Recommendations to Shareholders of the Old and New Multilateral Development Banks.” Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/publication/multilateral-development-banking-for-this-centurys-development-challenges (accessed April 8, 2021).

10.

Birdsall

Nancy

Subramanian

Arvind

. 2007. “‘From World Bank to World Development Cooperative.” Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

11.

Buchanan

James

. 1968. The Demand and Supply of Public Goods. Chicago: Rand McNally.

12.

Clemens

Michael A.

Kremer

Michael

. 2016. “The New Role for the World Bank.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30 (1): 53–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43710010 (accessed March 19, 2021).

13.

Collier

Paul

. 1997. “The Failure of Conditionality.” In Perspectives on Aid and Development, edited by Catherine

Gwin

Nelson

Joan M.

, 51–77. Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council.

14.

Cornes

Richard

Sandler

Todd

. 1994. “Are Public Goods Myths?” Journal of Theoretical Politics 6 (3): 369–85. doi:10.1177/0951692894006003006.

15.

Cowen

Tyler

. 1985. “Public Goods Definitions and Their Institutional Context: A Critique of Public Goods Theory.” Review of Social Economy 43 (1): 53–63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29769265 (accessed April 8, 2021).

16.

Desmarais-Tremblay

Maxime

. 2014. “On the Definition of Public Goods, Assessing Richard A. Musgrave’s Contribution.” CES Working Paper 4. Paris: L’Universite Paris 1.

17.

Doemeland

Doerte

Trevino

James

. 2011. “Which World Bank Reports Are Widely Read?” Policy Research Working Paper No. 6851. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/387501468322733597/which-world-bank-reports-are-widely-read (accessed April 8, 2021).

18.

Dyer

Geoff

Anderlini

Jamil

Sender

Henny

. 2011. “China’s Lending Hits New Heights”. Financial Times, January 17. www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/488c60f4-2281-11e0-b6a2-00144feab49a.html (accessed December 17, 2019).

19.

Easterly

William

. 2001. The Elusive Quest for Growth. Cambridge: MIT Press.

20.

Easterly

William

. 2002. “The Cartel of Good Intentions: The Problem of Bureaucracy in Foreign Aid.” Journal of Policy Reform 5 (4): 223–50. doi:10.1080/1384128032000096823.

21.

Enke

Stephen

. 1955. “More on the Misuse of Mathematics in Economics: A Rejoinder.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 37 (2): 131–33. doi:10.2307/1925744.

22.

Ferroni

Marco

. 2001. Regional Public Goods in Official Development Assistance. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Regional-Public-Goods-in-Official-Development-Assistance.pdf (accessed April 8, 2021).

23.

Gavin

Michael

Rodrik

Dani

. 1995. “The World Bank in Historical Perspective.” American Economic Review 85 (2): 329–34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117942 (accessed April 8, 2021).

24.

Gilbert

Christopher

Powell

Andrew

Vines

David

. 1999. “Positioning the World Bank.” The Economic Journal 109 (459): 598–633. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2566065 (accessed April 8, 2021).

25.

Grayson

Kyle

. 2001. “Human Security in the Global Era.” In The Market Or the Public Domain? Global Governance and the Asymmetry of Power, edited by Daniel

Drache

, 229–254. New York: Routledge.

26.

Guterres

António

. 2020. “Global Wake-up Call.” United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/global-wake-call (accessed September 17, 2020).

27.

Güven

Ali Burak

. 2017a. “Defending Supremacy: How the IMF and the World Bank Navigate the Challenge of Rising Powers.” International Affairs 93 (5): 1149–66. doi:10.1093/ia/iix167.

28.

Güven

Ali Burak

. 2017b. “The World Bank and Emerging Powers: Beyond the Multipolarity-Multilateralism Conundrum.’” New Political Economy 22 (5): 496–520. doi:10.1080/13563467.2017.1257596.

29.

IEG. 2013. Responding to Global Public Bads. Learning from Evaluation of the World Bank Experience with Avian Influenza 2006–2013. Washington, DC: World Bank.

30.

Igoe

Michael

. 2016. “Should the World Bank Go all in on ‘Global Public Goods?’” Devex, October 12. https://www.devex.com/news/should-the-world-bank-go-all-in-on-global-public-goods-88891 (accessed August 15, 2019).

31.

Ikenberry

G. John

Lim

Darren J.

2017. “China’s Emerging Institutional Statecraft: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Prospects for Counter-hegemony.” Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Chinas-emerging-institutional-statecraft.pdf (accessed April 8, 2021).

32.

Jerven

Morten

. 2013. Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

33.

Kanbur

Ravi

. 2002. “IFI’s and IPG’s: Operational Implications for the World Bank.” Paper prepared for the G24 Technical Group meeting, Beirut, Lebanon, March 1–2.

34.

Kanbur

Ravi

. 2004. “Regional versus International Financial Institutions.” In Regional Public Goods: From Theory to Practice, edited by Antoni

Estevadeordal

Frantz

Brian

Nguyen

Tam Robert

, 31–40. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

35.

Kanbur

Ravi

Sandler

Todd

Morrison

Kevin

. 1999. The Future of Development Assistance: Common Pools and International Public Goods. Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council.

36.

Kanbur

Ravi

. 2017. “What is the World Bank Good For? Global Public Goods and Global Institutions.” CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP12090. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2988848 (accessed April 8, 2021).

37.

Kapur

Devesh

. 2002. “Do as I Say Not as I Do: A Critique of G-7 Proposals on Reforming the MDBs.” Center for Global Development Working Paper No. 16. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

38.

Kapur

Devesh

. 2015. “Escape from the World Bank.” Project Syndicate, October 16. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/escape-world-bank (accessed December 7, 2020).

39.

Kapur

Devesh

. 2019. “What Next for the Bretton Woods Twins?” Project Syndicate, October 18. https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/what-next-for-the-bretton-woods-twins-by-devesh-kapur-2019-10?barrier=accesspaylog (accessed May 20, 2020).

40.

Kaul

Inge

Conceição

Pedro

Goulven

Katell Le

Mendoza

Ronald U.

, eds. 2003. Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press.

41.

Kaul

Inge

Grubnerg

Isabelle

Stern

Marc A.

, eds. 1999. Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, 77–111. New York: Oxford University Press.

42.

Kaul

Inge

Mendoza

Ronald U.

2003. “Advancing the Concept of Public Goods.” In Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, edited by Inge

Kaul

Conceição

Pedro

Goulven

Katell Le

Mendoza

Ronald U.

New York. Oxford University Press.

43.

Kindleberger

Charles P.

1986. “International Public Good without International Government.” American Economic Review 76 (1): 1–13. www.jstor.org/stable/1804123 (accessed April 8, 2021).

44.

Kopiński

Dominik

Sun

Qian

. 2014. “New Friends, Old Friends? The World Bank and Africa When the Chinese Are Coming.” Global Governance 20 (4): 601–23. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24526327 (accessed April 8, 2021).

45.

Kremer

Michael

. 2005. “The Missing Mandate: Global Public Goods.” Rescuing the World Bank, a CGD Working Group and Selected Essays. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development.

46.

Long

David

Woolley

Frances

. 2009. “Global Public Goods, Critique of an UN Discourse.” Global Governance 15 (1): 107–22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27800741 (accessed April 8, 2021).

47.

Morris

Scott

. 2018. “John Bolton Wants to Shut Down the World Bank.” Center for Global Development, March 23. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/john-bolton-wants-shut-down-world-bank (accessed April 8, 2021).

48.

Morris

Scott

Gleave

Madeleine

. 2015. “The World Bank at 75.” CDG Policy Paper No. 58. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/world-bank-75-revised-3-26-15_0.pdf (accessed April 8, 2021).

49.

Morrissey

Oliver

te Velde

Dirk Willem

Hewitt

Adrian

. 2002. “Defining International Public Goods.” In International Public Goods, edited by Marco

Ferroni

Mody

Ashoka

, 31–46. Boston: Springer.

50.

Musgrave

Richard A.

1959. The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

51.

Musgrave

Richard A.

Musgrave

Peggy B.

2003. “Prologue.” In Providing Global Public Goods. Managing Globalization, edited by Kaul

Inge

Conceição

Pedro

Goulven

Katell Le

Mendoza

Ronald U.

, xii–xv. New York: Oxford University Press.

52.

Okonjo-Iweala

Ngozi

. 2020. “Finding a Vaccine Is Only the First Step. No One Will Be Safe Until the Whole World Is Safe.” Foreign Affairs, April 30. https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.suffolk.edu/dist/9/1764/files/2020/06/Finding-a-Vaccine-Is-Only-the-First-Step-_-Foreign-Affairs.pdf (accessed April 8, 2021).

53.

Pickhardt

Michael

. 2006. “Fifty Years after Samuelson’s ‘The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure’: What are we Left With?” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28 (4): 439–60. doi:10.1017/S105383720000941X.

54.

Rappeport

Alan

Friedman

Lisa

. 2019. “Trump’s World Bank Nominee Tries to Distance Himself From the President.” The New York Times, March 13. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/politics/david-malpass-world-bank.html (accessed April 8, 2021).

55.

Ravallion

Martin

. 2016. “The World Bank: Why It Is Still Needed and Why It Still Disappoints.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 30 (1): 77–94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43710011 (accessed April 8, 2021).

56.

Sachs

Jeffrey

. 2012. “A World Bank for a New World.” Project Syndicate, February 24. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/a-world-bank-for-a-new-world (accessed April 8, 2021).

57.

Samuelson

Paul A.

1954. “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 36:387–89. doi:10.2307/1925895.

58.

Samuelson

Paul A.

1955. “Diagrammatic Exposition of a Theory of Public Expenditure.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 37 (4): 350–56. doi:10.2307/1925849.

59.

Sandler

Todd

. 1997. Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60.

Sandler

Todd

. 1998. “Global and Regional Public Goods: A Prognosis for Collective Action.” Fiscal Studies 19 (3): 221–47. doi:10.1111/j.1475-5890.1998.tb00286.x.

61.

Sandler

Todd

. 2003. “Assessing the Optimal Provision of Public Goods.” In Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, edited by Kaul

Inge

Conceição

Pedro

Goulven

Katell Le

Mendoza

Ronald U.

, 131–51. New York: Oxford University Press.

62.

Sandler

Todd

. 2009. “Intergenerational Public Goods: Transnational Considerations.” Scottish Journal of Political Economy 56 (3): 353–70. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9485.2009.00488.x.

63.

Schäferhoff

Marco

Fewer

Sara

Kraus

Jessica

Richter

Emil

Summers

Lawrence H.

Sundewall

Jesper

Yamey

Gavin

Jamison

Dean T.

2015. “How Much Donor Financing for Health is Channelled to Global versus Country-Specific Aid Functions?” The Lancet 386 (10011): 2436–41.

64.

Squire

Lyn

. 2006. “Why the World Bank Should be Involved in the Development Research.” In The World Bank: Structure and Policies, edited by Christopher L.

Gilbert

Vines

David

, 108–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

65.

Stiglitz

Joseph E.

1995. “The Theory of International Public Goods and the Architecture of International Organizations.” United Nations Background Paper No. 7. Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/768013?ln=en (accessed April 8, 2021).

66.

Stiglitz

Joseph E.

2003. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton.

67.

Strand

Jonathan R.

Retzl

Kenneth J.

2016. “Did Recent Voice Reforms Improve Good Governance within the World Bank?” Development and Change 47 (3): 415–45. doi:10.1111/dech.12231.

68.

Vestergaard

Jakob

Wade

Robert H.

2013. “Protecting Power: How Western States Retain the Dominant Voice in The World Bank’s Governance.” World Development 46:153–64. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.01.031.

69.

Wade

Robert H.

2002. “US Hegemony and the World Bank: The Fight over People and Ideas.” Review of International Political Economy 9 (2): 201–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4177420 (accessed April 8, 2021).

70.

Wan

Ming

. 2016. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: The Construction of Power and the Struggle for the East Asian International Order. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

71.

Wolf

Martin

. 2019. “The IMF Today and Tomorrow.” Finance & Development 56 (2): 5–8.

72.

Wood

Angela

Lockwood

Matthew

. 1999. “The ‘Perestroika of Aid’? New Perspectives on Conditionality.” Bretton Woods Project, Washington, DC. www.brettonwoodsproject.org/topic/governance/poa2.pdf (accessed May 2, 2018).

73.

Woods

Ngaire

. 2000. “The Challenge of Good Governance for the IMF and World Bank Themselves.” World Development 28 (5): 823–41. doi:10.1016/S0305-750X(99)00156-4.

74.

Woods

Ngaire

. 2003. “The United States and the International Financial Institutions: Power and Influence Within the World Bank and the IMF.” In US Hegemony and International Organizations, edited by Rosemary

Foot

MacFarlane

S. Neil

Mastanduno

Michael

, 62–114. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

75.

Woods

Ngaire

. 2006. The Globalizers. the IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

76.

World Bank. 1992. Effective Implementation: Key to Development Impact (Wapenhans Report). Washington, DC: World Bank.

77.

World Bank. 2001. “Effective Use of Development Finance for International Public Goods.” Global Development Finance. Washington, DC: World Bank.

78.

World Bank. 2007. Global Public Goods: A Framework for the Role of the World Bank. Washington, DC: World Bank.

79.

World Bank. 2016. Climate Change. Action Plan 2016-2020. Washington, DC: World Bank.

80.

World Bank. 2018. “Annual Report. Organizational Information and Lending Data Appendixes.” http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/439201538065152227/211296app.pdf (accessed May 1, 2020).

81.

World Bank. 2019. “Annual Report”. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/32333 (accessed May 1, 2020).

82.

World Bank. 2020. “Investing in Medical Laboratory Networks: Will COVID-19 (Coronavirus) be a Wake-up Call?” May 12. https://blogs.worldbank.org/health/investing-medical-laboratory-networks-will-covid-19-coronavirus-be-wake-call (accessed March 11, 2021).