That censored World Bank paper is now online:
"aid disbursements to highly aid dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank secrecy and private wealth management"
nielsjohannesen.net/wp-content/upl… by @jorgenja et al
"aid disbursements to highly aid dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank secrecy and private wealth management"
nielsjohannesen.net/wp-content/upl… by @jorgenja et al
@jorgenja ht @aidthoughts for that link
Kudos to whoever leaked the paper to the FT, which (as Matt points out) seems to have forced everyone's hand here.
ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/02/17/158…
ftalphaville.ft.com/2020/02/17/158…
And voila! The paper, which The Economist reported had been ‘spiked’, is as of 5:46pm unspiked — officially World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 9150
documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/493…
documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/493…
Anyway, since everyone is spinning this as “i knew foreign aid was a waste”, see this alternative reading:
And for a careful reading of what the paper actually does/doesn’t show, see this thread:
And here’s an official WB statement, that doesn’t really confirm or deny that they tried to spike the paper, or whether the Chief Economist left over this. Nor, notably, does it contest the results. Good on WB comms for the last part.
worldbank.org/en/news/statem… ht @berthofmanecon
worldbank.org/en/news/statem… ht @berthofmanecon
I also think @berthofmanecon points to an interesting and much less nefarious explanation of these results in his thread here — use of tax havens, yes, but not corruption or skimming of aid necessarily.
