This is a preprint of a paper developing three themes, capital structure, active learning, and spinoffs, with special attention to the Mondragon cooperatives.
Making Enterprises and Markets Responsible
March 26, 2013 by
This is a paper written to further Richard Cornuelle’s abiding vision of a more responsible economy and posted here to invite comment. The basic idea is revisit the whole idea of a market economy dominated by absentee-owned and publicly traded corporations (“Wall Street Capitalism”) that disconnect companies (“the Mother of all disconnects”) from the natural desires of the people working in the companies to improve their communities.
Helping People Help Themselves
December 19, 2012 by
The full title to this book is: Helping People Help Themselves: From
the World Bank to an Alternative Philosophy of Development Assistance. The book is an intellectual analysis, giving a full history of the relevant ideas, of the various modes of “helping” in general and development assistance in particular.
Revisiting Hirschman
December 15, 2012 by
This paper revisits the seminal early work of the late Albert Hirschman on development strategy and his critique of the “big push” strategies in order to elucidate the current debates about conditionality-based aid and comprehensive development programs.
Why Shock Therapy was Wrong
December 14, 2012 by
This article in Challenge May-June 2003 tried to pull together thoughts on two questions: the overall institutional change strategy and the alternatives to and arguments against voucher privatization.
The Two Institutional Logics
December 12, 2012 by
This paper, published in a Korean English-language journal, argued for the logic of commitment in the design of a firm rather than the logic of exit. The contrasts between these two logics is explored in many fields.
Lessons from East Europe’s Voucher Privatization
December 12, 2012 by
This article examines the “economic” arguments put forward in favor of voucher privatization and it gives an institutional analysis of how the investment funds might be expected to behave in spite of expectations seen through rose-colored glasses. As one of the “great” social experiments of the late 20th century, some lessons for the future are drawn.
Mixing Truth & Power: A Guest Editorial
December 11, 2012 by
After the dissent-motivated departures of Joseph Stiglitz, Ravi Kanbur, and now Bill Easterly, even “the most casual observer” can begin to “connect the dots” and see that the Bank is having a problem handling dissent and criticism coming from internal sources. This editorial in the World Bank Staff Association Newsletter traces the problem to the organizational stance of taking “Official Views” on the complex questions of development–thereby mixing power and truth to the detriment of the latter.
Getting the bugs out of the Knowledge Bank
December 11, 2012 by
This note argues that the World Bank should base the Knowledge Bank on the way human learn, not the way insects learn.
World Bank survey paper on migration
December 10, 2012 by
This survey of the literature on migration and development was my last written product before retiring from the World Bank. But the results of years of documented experience is that migration leads to poverty alleviation (remittances) but not development. This is not the message that the Bank wants to hear so the results are largely ignored.