Index manipulation
Paul Romer has argued that the World Bank manipulated the “Doing Business” index to show that Chile’s economic situation deteriorated between 2013 and 2017, or since Michelle Bachelet became Chile’s president.
Doing Business — Updated 1-16
By: Paul Romer – The World bank
Corporate Collusion
The World Bank withholds development funds when states cannot or don’t undertake the political or economic reforms which are attached to their development loans. This conditionality, argue Rabia Malik and Randall W. Stone in a recent paper, has been compromised because the Fortune 500 multinational companies which are project contractors lobby the Bank to make disbursements that are unjustified by project performance.
They [Malik and Stone] delve into one example drawn from their dataset, the Yacyretá Hydroelectric Project II carried out in Argentina from 1992 to 2000, plagued by human rights and ecological problems from the outset and called a “monument to corruption” by then Argentine president Carlos Menem in the wake of the conviction of members of the project’s administrative body for embezzlement and insider trading and charges of human rights violations by the IACHR.
The Yacyretá project garnered an “unsatisfactory” evaluation from the Bank, but still received 100 percent of loan disbursements. That dam was planned, designed, and built by the US Fortune 500 company MWH Global.
The Other World Bank Scandal: A New Study Documents How Corporate Collusion Hurts the Bank’s Credibility—and Harms Sustainable Development
By: Samantha Eyler-Driscoll – University of Chicago
The working paper
Corporate Influence in World Bank Lending
Authors: Rabia Malik, Randall W. Stone
From: New York University Abu Dhabi – University of Rochester
