“Nay” from Joseph Stiglitz

One person who has doubts on the suitability of Zoellick is Nobel Prize winner and former Chief Economist of the WBG, Joseph Stiglitz. As told to La Republica and reported in The Times, Stiglitz asked the following: “Robert Zoellick defended American agricultural protectionism until the bitter end when he was responsible for commercial talks. How will he, as the future president of the World Bank, ask for the dismantling of aid to agriculture that favours developed countries at the expense of those that are poor?

Could this nomination be overruled? This is what Bruce Jenkins from Bank Information Center is urging the members to do.
“Rather than enter into a debate about the relative merits of the lone horse in the running, we should reject the one-horse race entirely,”

He reminded us how the saga of these past few weeks has given us the opportunity for fundamental overhaul of the institution and the process of electing the president:
“The shareholders’ rush to put the scandal behind them without instituting the most basic reforms clearly shows the intractability of the governance failures at the institution. If not now, then when?”

3 thoughts on ““Nay” from Joseph Stiglitz

  1. The Japanese won’t be happy with Zoellick
    at the helm of World Bank.
    It was due to his pressure as former
    US Trade Representative, why they lost
    development rights for the vast Iranian
    Azadegan oil field, back in 2006.
    The contract was worth $100 billions.

  2. Well, Joe is not the only one who has a problem with this guy. Loved his testimony in front of the Senate Committee the other day.

    *Sigh* I guess many of us looking on kinda hoped that the disgrace of Wolfowitz might shake things up a little and bring in something new. Anything new.

    Instead, here’s another right wing white male heading the Bank supposedly to help developing nations, but actually fresh from trying to crush our vulnerable economies with subsidized US GMOs and other things we don’t want or need. I also want to know how a supporter of Big Pharma is going to make a full turnaround into helping countries with massive HIV/AIDS problems.

    This isn’t a perfect world, but surely we can do better than this? It is particularly duplicitous the way Europe has caved in over this. Oh well.

  3. I suppose Joe said everything in his classes, papers, books, and briefs at the White House that he can be entirely trusted to follow upon were he to replace PDW? That Zoelick defended American protectionism is a matter of US policy. I wonder if Joe openly advocated dismantling it when he was in the White House.

    Academics have the luxury of designing the perfect world and being double-tongued at the same time.

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