TYLER COWEN
Do you regret the time you spent there [at the World Bank]? Or what would you have done differently?
PAUL ROMER
Well, I was brought in to reform the research group. People in the Bank could tell that research was dysfunctional there, but shortly after I arrived, the number two, who I think had been behind this initiative, left to go take a position back in finance minister in Indonesia, and a different number two came into the Bank.
In retrospect, what happened was that number two decided we’re not going to reform research. We don’t want any noise. Because you reform things, you’re going to get noise. You’re going to get complaints. All other parts of the Bank had been reformed. Research hadn’t. So I wasted 16 months talking to the number two and the number one and saying, “You understand if I’m really going to reform the research group, there’s going to be noise, and it’s going to be a little contentious. You really want to do this, right?”
And they, “Yeah, no, no, absolutely, full speed ahead. We’re totally 100 percent behind you. We totally agree with each other.” And they were just lying to me. So I would go out and try and do something, and they would undercut every simple thing I tried to do. What I regret is the dishonesty of the leadership and failing to just say what was true, which is, “We changed our minds. We don’t want to reform research anymore.”
So I spent months and months doing really simple things like trying to move two direct reports, who reported to me, who didn’t have the integrity to have the kind of responsibility that they had. But I was facing a bureaucratic system that opposed moving these positions — and I’m not even talking about firing them, just moving them out of the critical positions so other people could fill those roles and do them correctly.
I faced not only internal bureaucratic delays, but my bosses were undercutting me and stopping me from doing this. I finally figured it out and said I was going to resign. They told me, “Oh no, it’d do enormous damage to the Bank if you resigned.” And I still took what they said seriously. So then I went out and just got myself fired. I gave an interview in the Wall Street Journal, which I knew would make them mad.
Then they said, “Okay, well, you broke the rules, so we have to have an investigation.”
I said, “No, you don’t have to have an investigation. I broke the rules.”
They said, “Okay, well then we have to put you on administrative leave, and you have to sign this agreement where you won’t say anything without our approval.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
And then they said, “Okay, well then you have to resign.”
And I said, “Well, that was what I tried to do on Thursday. I resign.”
And that was the end of it.
Tosin Adeoti
