Over 100 Economists Endorse Jose Antonio Ocampo for World Bank President

Kevin P. Gallagher and Stephany Griffith-Jones

For the first time ever developing countries have officially nominated candidates to serve at the President of the World Bank. Acknowledging that the process whereby the World Bank President is chosen by the United States lacks legitimacy, the World Bank has pledged that the next President will be chosen based on the merits. With Yu Yongding from the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, and Liqing Zhang from the Central University of Finance and Economics in China, the two of us circulated this petition endorsing Jose Antonio Ocampo for the World Bank Presidency. After just a few days from sending out our letter, you can see that we received overwhelming support from across the world, from renown academic economists, former Central Bank governors, and the heads of international agencies. It is our view, and the view of these economists, that Jose Antonio Ocampo is the best qualified to lead and reform the World Bank. We sent this letter and petition to the Executive Directors of the World Bank and post it here on the Triple Crisis blog.

Petition in support of World Bank presidential nominee Jose Antonio Ocampo

In relation to the forthcoming election of the President of the World Bank, in which you will play an important role, we wanted to express our strongest support for Jose Antonio Ocampo and provide some personal background about him which we hope will be of interest to you.

Jose Antonio Ocampo is outstandingly well suited for the job for three reasons. Firstly, he has had a distinguished career in his own country, where he was a highly successful and professional Minister of three portfolios: Finance, Agriculture and Planning. Therefore he has a deep understanding of policy challenges in developing and emerging countries.

Secondly, he has had an impressive international career as an international civil servant at the highest level. He was Executive Secretary of ECLAC for five years, the UN Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; later he became Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs at the UN for four years. In both institutions, his intellectual leadership and commitment to development led to significant improvements in these institutions contribution to development thinking and to development policy design.

Thirdly, he is respected as one of the foremost development economists in academia.  He is a Professor at Columbia University, where he works on research about a wide range of development and macroeconomic topics. He is held in high regard in Yale University where he obtained his doctorate. He has had close associations with different top universities around the world including Oxford and Cambridge as well as various ones in developing and emerging countries.

This wide ranging experience at the highest levels of leadership within the international system, as well as within an important developing country, makes him exceptionally well suited for the position of President at the World Bank. We hope you will consider his exceptional qualities in your important decision, as it is so important to have the best person for this crucial position.

We thank you for your leadership in development and wish you continued success.

ECONOMISTS STATEMENT ENDORSING JOSE ANTONIO OCAMPO FOR WORLD BANK PRESIDENT

We the undersigned economists, endorse the candidacy of Jose Antonio Ocampo for President of the World Bank.  Throughout his career Dr. Ocampo has managed and reformed national ministries of finance, agriculture and planning, and regional and global UN Agencies pertaining to economic development and social affairs.  Furthermore, he is one of the most noted development economists of our time.  It is our view that based his relative merits, Dr. Ocampo is the most suitable candidate for World Bank president.

Initial Signatories:
Yu Yongding, Academician, China Academy of Social Sciences, China
Kevin Gallagher, Professor, Global Development Policy Program, Boston University, USA
Stephany Griffith-Jones, Financial Markets Program Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, New York, USA; Former Professorial Fellow, IDS, Sussex, UK
Liqing Zhang, Professor and Dean, School of Finance, Central University of Finance and. Economics, Beijing, China

Additional Support:

1. Dr. Y Venugopal Reddy, Emeritus Professor, University of Hyderabad, Former Governor – Reserve Bank of India, Hyderabad, India
2. Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Chile
3. Andrés Bianchi, Former Governor, Central Bank, Chile; Vice President, Credit and Investment Bank, Chile
4. Manuel Marfán, Vice President, Central Bank of Chile; Former Director, Development Economics Division, UN-ECLAC; Former Minister of Finance, Chile
5. Jerzy Osiatyński, Former Finance Minister, Poland; Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
6. Leonardo Villar, Appointed Executive Director of FEDESARROLLO, Colombia; Formerly, Chief Economist and Corporate Vicepresident at CAF – Development Bank of Latin America; Member of the Board of Directors of the Colombian Central Bank (Banco de la República)
7. Roberto Zahler, Former Governor, Central Bank, Chile; President, Zahler & Co., Santiago, Chile
8. Sir Tony Atkinson, Nuffield College, Oxford, UK
9. Guillermo Calvo, Professor, Columbia University, New York, USA
10. Ha-Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, UK
11. Giovanni Andrea Cornia – University of Florence, Italy; Former Director, UNU/WIDER; Former Director, UNICEF-IRC Economic & Social Research Programme
12. Roberto Frenkel, CEDES, Argentina
13. Gerry Helleiner, University of Toronto, Canada
14. Sir Richard Jolly, Former Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations; Professor, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK
15. Deepak Nayyar, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Distinguished University Professor of Economics. New School for Social Research, New York; Former Vice chancellor, University of Delhi, India
16. Lance Taylor, Arnhold Prof of International Cooperation and Development, New School for Social Research, New York, USA
17. Frances Stewart, University of Oxford, UK
18. John Toye, Dept of international Development, Oxford University, UK
19. Manuel Agosin, Dean, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Chile, Chile
20. Yilmaz Akyuz, Chief Economist, South Centre, Switzerland; Former Director and Chief Economist, UNCTAD
21. Jose Antonio Alonso, Professor of Applied Economics, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain
22. Elmar Altvater, Free University Berlin, Germany
23. Isabel Alvarez, Prof., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
24. Enzo Fabio Arcangeli, Retired Professor of Economics. Formerly: Instituto de Economia, Unicamp, Campinas; and Università di Padova, Italy
25. Rudi von Arnim, University of Utah, USA.
26. Ricardo Bielschowsky, Professor, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janiero, Brazil
27. Patrick Bolton, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
28. Dr Stephanie Blankenburg, SOAS, Lecturer, Department of Economics, UK
29. Robert A. Blecker, Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, American University, Washington, DC, USA
30. Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, Emeritus Professor, Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil
31. Ariel Buira, Former Deputy Governor, Bank of Mexico, Mexico
32. Jorge Buzaglo, Honorary Associate Professor in Economics, Associate Researcher, University of Stockholm, Sweden
33. Sara Calvo, Lecturer, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
34. Fernando J. Cardim de Carvalho, Professor of Economics, Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
35. Ana Célia Castro, Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Coordinator Graduate Program in Public Policies, Strategies and Development; Vice-coordinator Institute of Science and Technology in Public Policies, Strategies and Development; MINDS Director (Multidisciplinary Institute for Development and Strategies);IBRACH member (Institute for Brazil and China Studies); Brazil
36. J. Celso Cardoso Jr., IPEA, Brasil
37. Pedro Cezar Dutra Fonseca, Professor, Economics Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
38. Guglielmo Chiodi,, Professor of Economics, Sapienza Università di Roma, Department of Social Sciences, Italy
39. Christopher Cramer, Professor of the Political Economy of Development, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK
40. Roy Culpeper, University of Ottawa and Carleton University
41. Sulamis Dain, Full Professor, Institute of Social Medicine, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
42. Jane D’Arista, Political Economy Research Institute, USA
43. Carmen Diana Deere, Distinguished Professor of Latin American Studies and Food & Resource Economics, University of Florida, USA
44. Robert Devlin, Communiqué International, USA
45. Zdenek Drabek, Charles University, Czech Republic
46. Amitava Krishna Dutt, Professor of Economics and Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, USA. Country of citizenship: India
47. Gerald Epstein, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
48. Prof. Giuseppe Fontana, Head of Economics, Professor of Monetary Economics. LUBS – University of Leeds, United Kingdom
49. Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, Universidad de Chile, Chile
50. Jean-Paul Fitoussi, Professor of Economics, Sciences-Po, Paris, France; LUISS, Rome Italy
51. Carlos Fortin, Research Associate, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK
52. Dr. Smitha Francis, Economic Research Foundation, New Delhi, India.
53. Professor Dr. Ulrich Fritsche, Department Socioeconomics, University Hamburg, Germany
54. Sarah Gammage, Economist, Chile
55. Haihong Gao, Director, Research Center for International Finance, IWEP, CASS, Beijing, China
56. Jayati Ghosh, Professor, J Nehru University, New Delhi, India
57. Milena Gomez, Kopp Professor, Diplomatic Academy, Colombian Foreign Ministry, Bogota, Colombia
58. Professor Ilene Grabel; Co-Director Graduate Program in Global Finance, Trade and Economic Integration, Josef Korbel School of Int’l Studies, University of Denver, USA
59. Barbara Harriss-White, Senior Research Fellow, Area Studies, Oxford University, Emeritus Fellow , Wolfson College, Oxford, Emeritus Professor of Development Studies, Oxford University, UK
60. Prof. Dr. Rolph van der Hoeven, Professor of Employment and Development Economics, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University (EUR), The Hague, The Netherlands
61. Stuart Holland, Coimbra Centre for Innovative Management, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal
62. Raphael Kaplinsky, Professor of International Development, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
63. Celia Lessa Kerstenetzky, Full professor of Economics and Political Theory, Fluminense Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
64. Jan Kregel, Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Blithewood, Annandale-on-Hudson NY, USA
65. Lena Lavinas, Professor of Welfare Economics, Institute of Economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
66. Dic Lo, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, U.K.; and
    School of Economics, Renmin University of China, China.
67. Denise Lobato Gentil, Professor, Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
68. Francisco Luiz C. Lopreato, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil
69. John Loxley, Department of Economics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
70. Ricardo de Medeiros Carneiro, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia, Campinas – SP – Brasil
71. Peter B. Meyer, President and Chief Economist, The E.P. Systems Group, Inc., United States
72. John Miller, Professor of Economics, Wheaton College, Norton, MA, USA
73. Alicia Puyana Mitis, Professor, FLACSO, Mexico
74. Mritiunjoy Mohanty, Professor, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, India
75. Beatriz Nofal, Director International Women’s Forum (IWF), Director KPMG Argentina, Professor UCA (Catholic University Argentina), Former Secretary of -Investments, Under-Secretary of -Industry and Trade and Congress, Representative of Argentina.
76. Akbar Noman, Senior Fellow, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, New York USA
77. Carlos Octavio Ominami Pascual, Economist; Former Parliamentary member; Former Minister of State to President Patricio Aylwin, Chile
78. Gabriel Palma, University Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, UK. Country of origin: Chile
79. Emilio Ontiveros, Professor of Business Administration, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain; President, International Financial Analysts
80. Ernesto Ottone, Professor, College d’Etudes Mondiales /Maison des Sciences Humaines, París, France; Chair, Globalization and Democracy, Diego Portales University, Chile and San Martin National University, Argentina; Advisor, Club de Madrid
81. Dimitri Papadimitriou, President, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Blithewood, Annandale-on-Hudson NY, USA
82. Leda Maria Paulani, University of São Paulo, Department of Economics, Full Professor, Brazil
83. Ignacio Perrotini, Full time Professor of Economics, UNAM, Mexico
84. Cosimo Perrotta, Former Professor of the History of Economic Thought at the University of Salento, Italy
85. Avinash D. Persaud, London Business School & Gresham College, UK and Barbados
86. Pascal Petit, CNRS-CEPN University of Paris Nord, France
87. Vladimir Popov, Interregional Advisor, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), United Nations
88. Gabriel Porcile, Economist – ECLAC – Division of Productivity and Management, Santiago, Chile; Professor, Department of Economics, Federal University of Parana, Brazil
89. Antonio Prado, Deputy Executive Secretary, CEPAL, Brazil
90. Codrina Rada, Assistant Professor of Economics, The University of Utah, USA
91. Kunibert Raffer, Department of Economics, University of Vienna, Austria
92. Martin Rapetti, Professor of Macroeconomics, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
93. Jorn Rattso, Professor of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
94. Sanjay Reddy, Associate Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research, New York, USA
95. Colin Richardson, Adjunct Professor of Economics, Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, Australia
96. Jaime Ros, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Kellogg Institute of International Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
97. Zdzisław L. Sadowski, Emer. Professor of Development Economics, University of Warsaw, Poland; Honorary President of the Polish Economic Society
98. Roger J Sandilands, Professor of Economics, University of Strathclyde, UK
99. Claudio Sardoni, Professor of Economics, Department of Social Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
100. Karl P. Sauvant, Senior Fellow, Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, Columbia University, NY, USA
101. Rodney Schmidt, Vice-President, The North-South Institute, Ottawa, Canada
102. Andrew Schrank, Professor of Political Science and Sociology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
103. Mario Seccareccia, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, and Editor, International Journal of Political Economy
104. Stephanie Seguino, Professor of Economics, University of Vermont, USA
105. Professor Paul Shaffer, Dept. of International Development Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
106. Anwar Shaikh, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA
107. Peter Skott, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
108. Serena Sordi, Professor, University of Siena, Italy
109. Irene van Staveren, Professor of Pluralist Development Economics, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands
110. Dr Servaas Storm, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
111. Osvaldo Sunkel, Full Member, Chilean Academy of Social Sciences, Politics and Ethics; Profesor,University of Chile; Former Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK; Chairman, Editorial Board, CEPAL Review
112. Giuseppe Tattara, Economics Department, University of Venice, Italy
113. Daniel Titelman, Chief, Development Studies Section, UN-ECLAC
114. Victor Tokman, Presidential Advisor to President of Chile Ricardo Lagos; Assistant Director General, ILO; Regional Director for the Americas, Director of the Employment and Development Department and Director of Regional Employment Program LA and the Caribbean
115. Andras Uthoff Botka, Director (s), Instituto de Administración de Salud de la Facultad de Economía y Negocios, University of Chile, Chile
116. Gianni Vaggi, Full professor of Economics, University of Pavia, Italy
117. Alessandro Vercelli, Professor, Department of Economic Policy, Finance and Development, University of Siena
118. K. Vela Velupillai, Professor of Economics, University of Trento, Trento, Italy; Senior Visiting Professor, Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India; Emeritus Professor, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
119. Matías Vernengo, Associate Professor, University of Utah, USA
120. Ulrich Volz, Senior Researcher, German Development Institute & Visiting Professor, School of Economics, Peking University, China
121. Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy and Development, Department of International Development (ID), London School of Economics, UK
122. Thomas E. Weisskopf, Professor Emeritus of Economics and in the Residential College University of Michigan, USA
123. Timothy A. Wise, USA, Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University
124. Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos, Head of the Economic Policy and Economic History Department, Economics Institute – State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
125. Prof. Stefano Zambelli, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italy

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