Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T17:07:55.339Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Theory, Data, and Hypothesis Testing: World Bank Environmental Reform Redux

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2005

Daniel L. Nielson
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, daniel_nielson@byu.edu
Michael J. Tierney
Affiliation:
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, mjtier@wm.edu
Get access

Extract

We thank Tamar Gutner for her thoughtful comments on our article, “Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform” (International Organization, Spring 2003). While championing principal-agent (P-A) theory as the most promising approach to the study of international organizations (IOs) in general, she questions the novelty of our P-A model and criticizes both our methods and data. We are grateful for the opportunity to clarify our contributions and offer concrete solutions to the research questions that she raises.We thank Brad Parks and Sue Peterson for comments on an early version of this article. For research assistance, we are grateful to Daniel Magleby, Dan Maliniak, and Jess Sloan.

Type
COMMENT AND RESPONSE
Copyright
© 2005 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972. Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization. American Economic Review 62 (5):77595.Google Scholar
Brett, E.A. 2003. Participation and Accountability in Development Management. Journal of Development Studies 40 (2):129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, Ronald. 1937. The Nature of the Firm. Economica 5 (17):386405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, Eugene. 1980. Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm. Journal of Political Economy 88 (2):288307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Jonathan A. 2002. The World Bank Inspection Panel and the Limits of Accountability. In Reinventing the World Bank, edited by Jonathan Pincus and Jeffrey Winters, 13163. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Gilbert, Christopher, Andrew Powell, and David Vines. 2000. The World Bank's Structure: The Bank as an Institution. In Gilbert and Vines, The World Bank: Structure and Policies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gutner, Tamar. 2002. Banking on the Environment: Multilateral Development Banks and Their Environmental Performance in Central and Eastern Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Gutner, Tamar. 2005a. Explaining the Gaps Between Mandate and Performance: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform. Global Environmental Politics 5 (2):1037.Google Scholar
Gutner, Tamar. 2005b. World Bank Environmental Reform: Revisiting Lessons from Agency Theory. International Organization 59 (3): 77383.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Darren, David Lake, Daniel Nielson, and Michael Tierney. Forthcoming 2006. States, International Organizations, and Principal-Agent Theory. In Delegation Under Anarchy, edited by Darren Hawkins, David Lake, Daniel Nielson, and Michael Tierney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kiewiet, D. Roderick, and Matthew D. McCubbins. 1991. The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lake, David. 1996. Anarchy, Hierarchy, and the Variety of International Relations. International Organization 50 (1):133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyne, Mona. 2005. The Voter's Dilemma: Clientelism, Collective Goods and Democratic Accountability, unpublished manuscript, University of South Carolina. Columbia, SC.
Lyne, Mona, Daniel L. Nielson, and Michael J. Tierney. 2004. A Problem of Principals: Common Agency and Social Lending at the Multilateral Development Banks. Paper presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September, Chicago.
Milner, Helen. 2004. Why Delegate the Allocation of Foreign Aid to Multilateral Organizations? Principal-Agent Problems and Multilateralism. Paper presented at the Conference on Delegation to International Organizations, September, La Jolla, Calif.
Moe, Terry M. 1984. The New Economics of Organization. American Journal of Political Science 28 (3):73977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nielson, Daniel L., and Michael J. Tierney. 2003. Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform. International Organization 57 (2):24176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nielson, Daniel L., and Michael J. Tierney. 2004. Principals and Interests: Common Agency and Multilateral Development Bank Lending. Paper prepared for the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September, Chicago.
Oye, Kenneth. 1984. Cooperation under Anarchy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Pollack, Mark A. 2003. The Engines of European Integration: Delegation, Agency, and Agenda Setting in the EU. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rich, Bruce. 1994. Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment, and the Crisis of Development. Boston: Beacon Press.
Wade, Robert. 1997. Greening the Bank: The Struggle over the Environment, 1970–1995. In The World Bank: Its First Half Century, Vol. 2, edited by Devesh Kapur, John P. Lewis, and Richard Webb, 611734. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Williamson, Oliver. 1975. Markets and Hierarchies, Analysis and Antitrust Implications: A Study in the Economics of Internal Organization. New York: Free Press.
World Bank. 2002. Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Development: An Evaluation of the World Bank's Performance. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
World Bank. 2003. Special Purpose Financial Statements and Internal Control Report of the International Development Association. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.