World Bank
The World Bank appears in The giant factory town that might be a giant mistake through the development-economics frame around the Middle-Income Trap. The episode says Homi Kharas helped coin the term with another World Bank economist and later points to a major World Bank report titled The Middle Income Trap.
In this source, the World Bank functions less as a lender than as the institutional setting for a diagnosis: economists can broadly describe how poor countries become middle income and how rich countries keep growing through frontier innovation, but middle-income countries have no single upgrade recipe.
A firm Andy: what are new British PM’s plans? adds a postwar damage-estimate role. Gareth Brown cites the World Bank’s estimate that more than $100bn of physical assets in Syria were destroyed, making the institution part of Postwar Reconstruction Finance rather than only development-stage diagnosis.
Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School) adds an evaluation-design role. David McKenzie appears as a World Bank economist who suggested partly randomized selection for the YouWin Program, turning a Nigerian entrepreneur-grant contest into evidence for Direct Entrepreneur Grants, Small Business Financing Gap, and Randomized Controlled Trials.
Connections
- Homi Kharas - economist tied to the term.
- Middle-Income Trap - report and development frame.
- Brazil, Manaus, and Zona Franca de Manaus - source case.
- Premature Deindustrialization and Localized Innovation Advantage - related ideas in the episode.
- Syria, Gareth Brown, and Postwar Reconstruction Finance - reconstruction-cost branch added by The Intelligence.
- David McKenzie, YouWin Program, Nigeria, and Evidence-Based Development Policy - entrepreneur-grant evaluation branch added by Planet Money.