Read more here! (My author page; the paper page is not working 😎) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/...

This is obviously one piece of a very large puzzle. But it's an interesting piece. It improves our understanding of how the global economy worked during the era of "neoliberalism," and it suggests new reasons for the current global turn to state capitalism.

I describe how the World Bank in the 1980s and 1990s helped Chinese leaders reform and strengthen state-owned enterprises. This is interesting because across much of the rest of the Global South, the World Bank (together with the IMF) pushed strongly for privatization.