Regional Development Banks in Comparison Banking Strategies versus Development Goals

In a study that contributes to international relations and international political economy theory, Ruth Ben-Artzi raises substantive issues relating to aid, development, international relations and globalization. Regional development banks (RDBs), designed by politicians and economists to maneuver through labyrinths of economic, social, and political development, possess the potential to be central players in the long-term planning involved in healing and advancing poverty-plagued regions. However, RDBs in particular have received little attention. With a systematic analysis comparing four central regional development banks, this book explores why there is a variation in strategy despite similar institutional design. The formal arrangements and raison d'être of RDBs is to assist developing countries in the process of poverty alleviation - a task that is often a risky investment. Focusing on the dichotomy between their banking and development roles, Ben-Artzi demonstrates that RDBs are potentially critical catalysts in the fight against poverty, even with their institutional limitations.

Introduction; 1. International financial institutions, development, and regional development banks; 2. Multilateral governance: theoretical and empirical underpinnings; 3. Origins, politics, and structure of regional development banks; 4. RDB loans and developing countries; 5. Banks or development agencies?; 6. Political and economic constraints, principals and agents, and prospects for development; Conclusion.

Ruth Ben-Artzi is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, Rhode Island. Professor Ben-Artzi has been a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Browne Center for International Politics and a visiting fellow at Sciences-Po, Paris. She has worked as a researcher at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Centre, and she holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York and an A.B. from the University of Haifa, Israel.