Paul
Romer, the chief economist of the World Bank, told the Wall Street
Journal yesterday that the bank’s “Doing Business” rankings had
been systematically gamed over the past few years to change Chile’s
ranking:
The
former director of the group responsible for the report, Augusto
Lopez-Claros, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment
sent to personal and work email addresses listed on his personal
website….A former professor at the University of Chile, Mr.
Lopez-Claros is on leave from the World Bank this year.
….Over
time, World Bank staff put a heavy thumb on the scales of its report
by repeatedly changing the methodology that was used to calculate the
country rankings, Mr. Romer said. The focus of the World Bank’s
corrections will be changes that had the effect of sharply penalizing
the ranking of Chile….Chile’s overall ranking has fluctuated
between 25th and 57th since 2006. During that period, the presidency
of Chile has alternated between Ms. Bachelet, of Chile’s socialist
party, and Sebastián Piñera, a conservative. Under Ms. Bachelet,
Chile’s ranking consistently deteriorated, while it consistently
climbed under Mr. Piñera.
First
off, I’m going to guess that Lopez-Claros’s leave from the World
Bank will last more than a year.
Second,
WTF? It’s bad enough that Lopez-Claros used his perch to make his
preferred party look good and the opposing party look bad. But it’s
hardly conceivable that no one involved in preparing the report
noticed what was going on. I guarantee there’s more to this story.
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