IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/treure/v15y2009i3-4p419-438.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The World Bank's Doing Business Report: A last fling for the Washington Consensus?1

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Bakvis

Abstract

The Washington Consensus policies of privatisation and deregulation promoted by the international financial institutions (IFIs) became increasingly controversial during the 1990s, and in 2004 the World Bank's president declared the consensus to be ‘dead’. However, a new push for across-the-board deregulation, notably in the area of workers’ protection, started in 2003 through an annual World Bank publication, Doing Business, which proclaimed a wide range of labour regulations to be nothing more than a hindrance to investment. The IFIs used it to pressure dozens of developing countries to do away with workers’ protection rules, contending that deregulation was necessary to stimulate employment growth, even though the Bank's own internal evaluators were unable to corroborate the claimed link between the Doing Business labour indicator and positive economic outcomes. Faced with mounting pressure from unions, the ILO and elected officials, the Bank finally instructed its staff in 2009 to stop using the indicator and removed it as a conditionality criterion, declaring that the global economic crisis justified adopting a different policy approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Bakvis, 2009. "The World Bank's Doing Business Report: A last fling for the Washington Consensus?1," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 15(3-4), pages 419-438, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:15:y:2009:i:3-4:p:419-438
    DOI: 10.1177/10242589090150031301
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10242589090150031301
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10242589090150031301?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2002. "World Development Indicators 2002," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13921, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ilo:ilowps:366690 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Obadan, Mike I., 2006. "Globalization of finance and the challenge of national financial sector development," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 316-332, April.
    3. Ouattara, B., 2006. "Foreign aid and government fiscal behaviour in developing countries: Panel data evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 506-514, May.
    4. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2002. "Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel," Scholarly Articles 3221170, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    5. Ludger Wößmann, 2005. "Educational Production in East Asia: The Impact of Family Background and Schooling Policies on Student Performance," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 6(3), pages 331-353, August.
    6. Nancy Birdsall, 2002. "A Stormy Day on an Open Field: Asymmetry and Convergence in the Global Economy," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: David Gruen & Terry O'Brien & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),Globalisation, Living Standards and Inequality: Recent Progress and Continuing Challenges, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    7. Indur M. Goklany, 2003. "Relative Contributions of Global Warming to Various Climate Sensitive Risks, and Their Implications for Adaptation and Mitigation," Energy & Environment, , vol. 14(6), pages 797-822, November.
    8. Marijke Verpoorten & Lode Berlage, 2004. "Genocide and land scarcity: Can Rwandan rural households manage?," CSAE Working Paper Series 2004-15, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Mansfield, Richard K. & Moore, Michael, 2007. "Demographic change, social security systems, and savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 92-114, January.
    10. Jamison, Eliot A. & Jamison, Dean T. & Hanushek, Eric A., 2007. "The effects of education quality on income growth and mortality decline," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 771-788, December.
    11. Axel Dreher, 2002. "Does Globalization Affect Growth?," Development and Comp Systems 0210004, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Jun 2003.
    12. Busse, Matthias, 2004. "On the determinants of core labour standards: the case of developing countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 211-217, May.
    13. Malte LÜBKER, 2004. "Globalization and perceptions of social inequality," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 143(1-2), pages 91-128, March.
    14. Yeboah, Godfred & Maynard, Leigh J., 2004. "The Impact Of Bse, Fmd, And U.S. Export Promotion Expenditures On Japanese Meat Demand," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 19978, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Dodzin, Sergei & Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2004. "Trade and industrialization in developing economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 319-328, October.
    16. Adam Szirmai, 2011. "Manufacturing and Economic Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-075, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Robert Kirk & Matthew Stern, 2005. "The New Southern African Customs Union Agreement," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 169-190, February.
    18. Sadik, Ali T. & Bolbol, Ali A., 2003. "Arab External Investments: Relation to National Wealth, Estimation, and Consequences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1771-1792, November.
    19. Girsberger, Esther Mirjam & Méango, Romuald & Rapoport, Hillel, 2020. "Regional migration and wage inequality in the West African economic and monetary union," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 385-404.
    20. Sieglinde Gstöhl, 2007. "Governance through government networks: The G8 and international organizations," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-37, March.
    21. William Easterly & Ross Levine & David Roodman, 2003. "New Data, New doubts: A Comment on Burnside and Dollar's "Aid, Policies, and Growth" (2000)," NBER Working Papers 9846, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:15:y:2009:i:3-4:p:419-438. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.