Harvard Grad To Head World Bank

Last Wednesday, President George W. Bush announced that he would nominate Robert B. Zoellick, a Harvard Law School (HLS) and Kennedy School of Government (KSG) graduate, to be the World Bank’s 11th president, succeeding Paul Wolfowitz in the position.

His nomination is subject to approval by the Bank’s Board of Governors, who are appointed to five-year terms by the Bank’s member countries.

“Bob Zoellick has had a long and distinguished career in diplomacy and development economics,” said the President in a press conference last week. “It has prepared him well for this new assignment.”

Zoellick has filled a number of prominent government posts, most recently serving as United States Deputy Secretary of State from February 2005 to July 2006 and U.S. Trade Representative from February 2001 to February 2005. He resigned from the former post in order to become a managing director at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, where he headed the firm’s international advisers.

Prior to this, Zoellick was a research scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the KSG between 1999 and 2001. He had received both his J.D. from HLS and Masters in Public Policy from the KSG in 1981.

“He is very much a problem solver—that is his central orientation, and I think he is sensitive to the challenging situation he faces and will make a sustained effort to provide stability and leadership to the World Bank, which remains an important institutions,” said Roger B. Porter, the IBM professor of business and government . “When I was a junior professor, he was one of my best teaching fellows, so I’m somewhat partial to him—but he’s got experience, and he is bright and capable. He’s a skillful negotiator, and that’s what the job needs.”

Bush cited Zoellick’s work in such fields as Latin American debt relief and the transition of post-Soviet economies as further evidence of his qualification for the post.

Zoellick is also a noted free trade advocate. He said during the Wednesday press conference that this philosophy would inform his stewardship of the Bank.

“The Bank’s reliance on markets, investments, sound policies, good governance and partnerships for self-help are in keeping with the values that Americans esteem,” he said.

Dani Rodrik, the Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the KSG, wrote on his blog that Zoellick’s belief in free trade may limit his ability to aid developing nations.

“[Zoellick’s] take on the reforms needed by developing countries remains, as far as I can tell, quite conventional, circa 1980, with a splash of ‘augmented’ Washington Consensus thinking added in,” he wrote. “One needs to go beyond these old-fashioned ideas that pit states against markets if one wants to make progress against global poverty.”

Rodrik did not respond to phone and e-mail requests for comment yesterday.

Wolfowitz resigned his post effective June 30th. He was forced to step down from his position when an internal panel determined that his romantic partner, a communications officer at the World Bank, had received promotions and a more than $60,000 pay raise during his tenure.

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.