List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction Joseph E. Stiglitz; 1. The World Bank: an overview of some major issues Christopher L. Gilbert and David Vines; Part I. The World Bank's Structure: The Bank as an Institution: 2. Positioning the World Bank Christopher L. Gilbert, Andrew Powell and David Vines; 3. The World Bank and poverty reduction: past, present and future Ravi Kanbur and David Vines; 4. Why the World Bank should be involved in development research Lyn Squire; 5. The challenges of multilateralism and governance Ngaire Woods; Part II. The Effectiveness of World Bank Assistance: 6. The World Bank and structural adjustment: lessons from the 1980s Francisco H. G. Ferreira and Louise C. Keely; 7. The implications of foreign aid fungibility for development assistance Shantayanan Devarajan and Vinya Swaroop; 8. Aid, growth, the incentive regime and poverty reduction Craig Burnside and David Dollar; 9. How policies and institutions affect project performance: microeconomic evidence on aid, policies and investment productivity Jonathan Isham and Daniel Kaufmann; 10. Increasing aid effectiveness in Africa? The World Bank and sector investment programmes Stephen Jones; 11. The World Bank, conditionality and the Comprehensive Development Framework Raul Hopkins, Andrew Powell, Amlan Roy and Christopher L. Gilbert; 12. Conditionality, dependence and coordination: three current debates in aid policy Paul Collier; Index.