FROM CRITIC TO SECULAR GOD: THE WORLD BANK AND AFRICA: A COMMENTARY UPON SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: FROM CRISIS TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
FROM CRITIC TO SECULAR GOD: THE WORLD BANK AND AFRICA: A COMMENTARY UPON SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: FROM CRISIS TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
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从批评家到世俗上帝：世界银行与非洲：对撒哈拉以南非洲的评论：从危机到可持续增长
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发表时间：
1991
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
P. Collier
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作者：
P. Collier
世界银行最新的非洲报告在许多方面都是一项非常好的研究。作为一名经济学家，我在这里和那里与它分道扬镳，但这些狡辩不是本文的重点。我关心的是世界银行在政策变化过程中的作用。这超出了我的专业能力范围，事实上，我的论点将以一种有点不专业的方式进行：我开始一个图像。1904年的南极夏季突然结束，发现号被困在冰层中。斯科特船长决定锯出一条通往公海的航道，以解救这艘船。这是既艰巨又凄凉的：冰有七英尺厚，海有三英里远。尽管费了很大的劲，但还是砍出了几百码长的一刀。突然，天气变了：一阵微风吹过，海湾对面的冰碎成了巨大的浮冰。发现号被释放了。似乎是为了强调他们的努力无关紧要，冰层甚至没有沿着锯痕沿着破裂：锯痕在浮冰的中心漂向大海。到了1970年代，东欧人民显然受制于一种经济制度，这种制度将使他们相对地、甚至是绝对地陷入贫困。世界银行寻求协助，但只有一个华沙条约政府准备成为成员。世界银行同该国政府一起，适当地开始通过对话鼓励改革。由于国家政策是由一个自称为“世俗之神”的人决定的，因此进展缓慢。当罗马尼亚的坚冰最终破裂时，我怀疑世界银行的累积贡献类似于斯科特的锯切。东欧将为非洲提供许多经验教训;我在此仅举两个例子。首先，一旦保罗·科利尔（Paul Collier）成为牛津大学经济学讲师，非洲经济研究所（Unit for the Study of African Economies）的一员，改革最终将势不可挡。
THE LATEST World Bank Report on Africa is in many respects a formidably good study. As an economist I part company with it here and there, but these quibbles are not the focus of this article. My concern is rather with the Bank's role in the process of policy change. This takes me beyond my domain of professional competence, and indeed, my argument will be assembled in a somewhat unprofessional manner: I begin with an image. The Antarctic Summer of 1904 closed precipitately and The Discovery became entrapped in the ice. Captain Scott determined to free the ship by sawing a channel to the open sea. This was both arduous and forlorn: the ice was seven feet thick and the sea three miles distant. With much effort a single cut was nevertheless made of a few hundred yards. Suddenly, the weather changed: a breeze blew up and right across the bay the ice broke into huge floes. Discovery was set free. As if to emphasize the irrelevance of their effort, the ice did not even break along the saw-cut: the cut floated out to sea in the centre of a floe.2 Now I turn to the World Bank's involvement in Eastern Europe. By the 1970s it was apparent that the peoples of Eastern Europe were subject to an economic system which would immiserize them relatively and perhaps even absolutely. The World Bank sought to assist but only one Warsaw Pact government was prepared to become a member. With that government the Bank duly embarked upon encouraging reform by means of dialogue. Since national policy was determined by a man who came to style himself 'secular god', progress was slow. When the ice finally broke in Romania, the cumulative contribution of the Bank was, I suspect, analogous to Scott's saw-cut. Eastern Europe will provide many lessons for Africa; I will draw only two here. The first is that reform is ultimately unstoppable once a substantial Paul Collier is at the Unit for the Study of African Economies, and is Reader in Economics, University of Oxford.