1 Altruists or Bankers? A Comparative Study of How Multilateral Development Banks React to Changing External Circumstances

Abstract: This paper examines how the character of multilateral development banks (MDBs) as financial organizations impacts their mission of promoting development and providing international public goods. It does so through a comparative analysis of three different “types” of MDBs operating in Latin America—the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Corporación Andina de Fomento. The initial research phase discussed here compares financial performance and lending patterns using descriptive statistics accumulated from an extensive review of the annual balance sheets of each of these MDBs from 1975 to 2007. The evidence suggests that each MDB has systematically different reactions to changing external conditions, pointing to inherent competitive strengths and weaknesses derived from differing composition of shareholding countries