The Birth of Project Appraisal at the World Bank, 1945-1975

Forthcoming, Philip Scranton and Daniel Raff (eds.), The Emergence of Routines, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017

43 Pages Posted: 22 Feb 2017

See all articles by Michele Alacevich

Michele Alacevich

University of Bologna - Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali; Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)

Date Written: December 18, 2016

Abstract

Based on previously untapped archival material, this chapter discusses the establishment of the operations evaluation function at the World Bank between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, and the conflicting visions that shaped it. The birth of the operations evaluation function at the Bank was far from linear: it involved various attempts, false starts, and discussions about the goal of project appraisal, the intellectual foundations of project evaluation, and the organizational solutions to establish an efficient and useful function. By reconstructing the long process through which the Bank established its operations evaluation function, this chapter highlights the organizational steps through which the Bank tried to make this process reasonably efficient. Also, it discusses the tension between the organizational need for evaluation as a routine process and the intrinsically uncertain nature of the knowledge produced by this process.

Keywords: World Bank, Project appraisal, Project evaluation, Operations evaluation, Cost-benefit analysis, Development projects, Development Knowledge, Albert O. Hirschman, Robert S. McNamara

Suggested Citation

Alacevich, Michele, The Birth of Project Appraisal at the World Bank, 1945-1975 (December 18, 2016). Forthcoming, Philip Scranton and Daniel Raff (eds.), The Emergence of Routines, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2919829

Michele Alacevich (Contact Author)

University of Bologna - Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali ( email )

Strada Maggiore 45
Bologna, 40129
Italy

Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) ( email )

300 Park Avenue South, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10010
United States

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
90
Abstract Views
603
Rank
448,495
PlumX Metrics