Power, ideas, and World Bank conditionality

How and why do the policy areas covered in World Bank loan conditions change over time across borrowers? We hypothesize that shifts Bank’s economic research priorities influence conditions, even after controlling for country characteristics international political aspects. To test this claim we apply keyword-assisted topic models to analysis of 13,000 close 35,000 papers published between 1985 2014. Contrary criticism levelled against changes are mostly rhetorical have little substantive effect on lending, find internal priority explain a at least as well more traditional donor or borrower-specific measures central IPE lending.