How and why do the policy areas covered in World Bank loan conditions change over time and across borrowers? Authors Ben Cormier & Mark S. Manger hypothesize that shifts in the Bank’s economic research and policy priorities influence Bank loan conditions, even after controlling for country characteristics and international political aspects. Contrary to the criticism levelled against the Bank that changes in research and policy priorities are mostly rhetorical and have little substantive effect on Bank lending, the authors find that internal research and policy priority shifts explain the conditions in a Bank loan at least as well as more traditional donor or borrower-specific measures central to IPE models of Bank lending.
Read more in The Review of International Organizations (2021)