A few weeks ago, out of curiousity, I signed up to get the World Bank’s quarterly journal. I wanted to find out how the well heeled “experts” were able to justify that institution’s performance.
I recieved my first issue this week and, much to my surprise, the issue contained an article titled “Can We Discern the Effect of Globalization on Income Distribution?” by Branko Milanovic. Using houshold surveys and an arcane mathematical formula to normalize for outside variables (which I didn’t even try to understand), Milanovic found that in the 113 countries he studied the bottom 80% lost ground relative to the mean national income between 1988 and 1998, with the poorest ten percent losing the most, dropping from 30% of the mean to 23% of the mean. In 1988 the top 10 percent averaged 9 times the income of the bottom 10%; by 1998 that had grown to a factor of 13.
Milanovic concludes that “the poorest deciles in poor countries-those who should benefit most from increased trade according to both economic theory and the policy prescriptions of international organizations–appear to be the losers in relative terms.”
So, even the World Bank’s own journal is running articles showing that their fundamental policies and theories have failed. Only the rich benefit from World Bank policies.
It’s time for them to go!