Providing foreign financial assistance has often reflected an intellectual debate in the literature of economic aid. One important headline of the debate is the donors' motivations behind giving aid. Explaining the actual motivation of aid giving is a difficult task and does not allow for an easy answer. As Pierre Uri (1976) has observed, "It is impossible to discern the slightest rhyme or reason to the way in which funds have been distributed among recipient countries." Much the same, explaining why donors give aid is problematic and it is subject to preconceived judgement.;This study aims to identify simultaneously and quantitatively a variety of economic and political basis for the allocation of loans of the World Bank. Although the Bank is supposed to be motivated by economic concerns almost exclusively, there is reason to believe from earlier studies that political concerns are also quite important in the Bank lending policy. Simply, the coexistence of balance of a mixed technically economic and political-interests in the Bank's aid giving and the likely change of balance of the Bank's political and economic determinants over time are the main concerns of the study.;Translating the study's concerns into a research inquiry, the following questions serve the framework of the study's investigation: (1) Do we expect the operating technical-economic and political-interests determinants of the Bank to coexist in a relative degree of balance? (2) Most important, do we expect the balance between political and economic considerations to vary to different degrees over time with each consecutive World Bank regimes or is it always the same relative pattern of lending behavior with all of the Bank's successive presidents?;Answering these questions, the study concludes that the relative important mix of coexistence between the economic and political considerations are not constant over time, but are subject to relative change. They are subject to changing balance because changes within the leadership of successive presidents of the Bank's regimes and in the political-economic environment of the global system almost certainly mean that the balance will change.;The study is generally able to show that there are changes over time in understanding the economic needs by each executive successive president. This means that there were differences in judgement with each consecutive World Bank president on issues of economic efficiency and economic needs. It also means that differences in judgement eventually explain the nature of the Bank's bureaucratic decision-management within the context of the global environment.;A study set up in the manner of this project suggests its usefulness as a guide of understanding the political economy of foreign aid and helps us understand how and why international actors (such as the World Bank) behave within the system of the global political economy.
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