[Marxism] PEN-L comment on fired Yale professor

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am reluctant to kick someone when they are down...but the hypocrisy from
the *institutions* involved is staggering.

Lopez-de-Silanes and his Yale International Institute for Corporate
Governance (he is the founding Director) are central players in the bashing
of 3rd World countries for corruption, lack of financial transparency, lack
of "good governance" in the private and public sectors.  These shortcomings
were said to be a major reason for removing the current power structure,
dismantling existing institutions and relying on privatizations and free
markets.

Yale lured Lopez-de-Silanes from Harvard in a major, if expensive,
coup.  The Institute was inaugurated by the President of the World Bank
which (along with the IMF and others) heavily financed Mr. Lopez-de-Silanes
and his work as backing for its transformations in the 3rd world.
Lopez-de-Silanes dispensed his advice on corruption, transparency and free
markets with leaders such as President Fox of Mexico at his side.  Mr.
Lopez-de-Silanes was also a close collaborator of Andrei Sheifer of Harvard
with whom he worked on Russia and with whom he regularly and recently
authored several papers; Mr. Shleifer was convicted on federal corruption
charges last June and was subsequently made Editor of the prestigious
Journal of Economic Perspectives by the AEA.

The circumstances of this resignation are not entirely clear.  It would
seem to require extensive and willful effort to double bill the World Bank
and Yale for travel incidentals amounting to $150,000 (the WB, insists on
directly purchasing big ticket items such as travel tickets and requires
original receipts and personally signed requests for reimbursement of
incidentals; no doubt Yale has similar paperwork requirements).  Yet Mr.
Lopez-de-Silanes' explanation (issued through his lawyer) relied on the
intensity of his workload.  The World Bank and Yale heavily financed work
that demanded transparency (even at the expense of wrenching social
changes) from public and private institutions in the face of financial
misdeeds and mismanagement.  Yet the World Bank  has refused substantive
comment and Yale "would not say anything beyond that the resignation was 'a
result of financial misconduct and irregularities".  The public is owed
some further explanation *from these institutions themselves*.

Paul

Louis P. writes:
> (Sounds to me like he was putting bourgeois economics into practice.)
>
> CNN.com
> Yale economist resigns over financial misconduct
...snip...
> would not say anything beyond that the resignation was "a result of
> financial misconduct and irregularities."



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