What the Next President of the World Bank Should Do?

As the World Bank's board considers nominations for the institution's next president (Donald Trump is expected to nominate David Malpass, the US Treasury department's top official on international affairs), there are two critical ways he or she can make the bank more effective.

While trade representatives from China and the US face off in Washington over escalating trade tensions, their representatives also sit side by side as shareholders, their interests aligned, working to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity via the World Bank. That is the beauty of the bank: its diplomatic mission gives it a unique ability to address global issues. In an era of trade wars and growing great power tensions, it is easy to believe that diplomacy has been reduced to a zero sum game — but the bank proves otherwise, even as it faces its own challenges. When I was its chief economist, I tried (and failed) to help reform the World Bank. And still, I believe that it can do so much more; it can build more roads and vaccinate more children more effectively if it embraces its diplomatic mission.

That is why I recommend that the bank's new president do the following: First, outsource the bank's research upon which it depends for identifying problems and proposing solutions. Diplomacy and science cannot both thrive under the same roof. One consequence of the bank's commitment to diplomacy is its necessary embrace of the helpful ambiguity that makes it possible for multilateral institutions to allow "Chinese Taipei" compete in the Olympic Games without "Taiwan, China" having a seat in the UN. Dispassionate examination makes clear that what the bank does to maintain conformity on the diplomatic front is not compatible with scientific research. All that...