"It would be a demotion in the Bank to be called an economist [...] and death for a career." 

– Irving S. Friedman, Economic Adviser to the President of the World Bank, 1964–1970

Development Brokers: The World Bank, Economic Expertise, and the Reinvention of Global Economic Governance in the 1960s

This book project uncovers how a small and largely forgotten cohort of economists transformed the World Bank from a cautious lender into a formidable actor in global development. Operating at the crossroads of intensifying Cold War rivalries and rapid decolonization, these economists endowed the Bank with a new and far more influential voice in debates over development. Development Brokers reconstructs the intellectual world of these figures and the ambitious visions they crafted for economic development and multilateral governance. It also reveals a striking historical irony: the foundations of the Bank’s economic expertise were radically different from the trajectory the institution would later take. In the 1960s, the Bank economists frequently aligned themselves with perspectives found in other international organizations – including those considered its competitors – pushing the Bank toward unexpectedly progressive positions. They also advanced ideas such as commodity-price stabilization and early forms of policy conditionality that would eventually diverge sharply from the strategies later adopted across the global development landscape. In this sense, my work offers new perspectives on the evolution of development thinking and lending, the politics of expertise, and the historical role of multilateral institutions in shaping and managing the world economy.

Archives consulted for Development Brokers:

American Heritage Center (Laramie, Wyoming, USA)

Bank of France (Paris, France)

Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts, University of Oxford (Oxford, UK)

Caltech Archives and Special Collections (Pasadena, California, USA)

Columbia University Archives (New York City, New York, USA)

Economists’ Papers Archive (Durham, North Carolina, USA)

Harvard University Archives (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA)

Hoover Institution Library &  Archives (Stanford, California, USA)

IMF Archives (Washington, D.C., USA)

International Coffee Organization (London, UK)

JFK Presidential Library (Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

LBJ Presidential Library (Austin, Texas, USA)

Library of Congress (Washington, D.C., USA)

United Nations Archives (New York City, New York, USA)

US National Archives (College Park, Maryland, USA)

World Bank Group Archives (Washington, D.C., USA)