The records consist of three series. One series is on India's Fourth Five Year Plan, which Bell studied as a consultant to the Bank in 1964-1965 and as a staff member during 1966-67; another is on the oil industry in Indonesia, which concerned Bell as director of the Bank's Indonesian office; and third is copies of policy and research papers he collected as Regional Vice President, east Asia and Pacific Region. Also included in the India files is a report, written by Bell's consulting firm in 1963, on statistics of Korea.

The series on India's Fourth five year plan includes correspondence; memos; records of meetings of the India Consortium, a group of countries concerned with India's development efforts; a copy of Bell's fourteen volume report in 1965; the 1967 Bank report on the Fourth FiveYear Plan; copies of other Bank reports and official documents from the government of India; and publications from external sources.

Bell's 1964-1965 mission to India significantly influenced Bank policies toward Indian development. At that time, India was the main debtor of IBRD and was heavily indebted to other development agencies and governments throughout the world. Bank President George D. Woods named Andre de Lattre as his personal representative to the Indian government, and after Bell joined the Bank, Woods requested that he become de Lattre's economic adviser. Bell was responsible for the Bank's analysis of the Indian government's Fourth FiveYear Plan, and his study was published in the 1967 Bank report entitled Indian Economic Policy and the Fourth Five Year Plan. The series contains Bell's copies of correspondence with Woods and de Lattre, correspondence with the government of India and documents from the U.S. government on India, and a file on Woods' meeting with Ashok Mehta, the Indian Minister of Planning. Also included are subject files on the Fourth Plan, containing correspondence and background materials.

The files on the Indonesian oil sector were created while Bell was director of the Bank's resident staff in Djakarta. The series includes a draft of a paper on the historical development of the oil sector in Indonesia, including notes on Indonesian oil companies. Correspondence and notes concerning Bank economic missions reviewing the oil sector are included, as well as notes of interviews with Indonesian government officials and oil company personnel. The series contains copies of articles on Indonesian oil, copies of Indonesian laws regulating the oil sector, and statistics on the financial status of P.N. Pertamina, the Indonesian National Oil and Natural Gas Mining State Enterprise.

The series of research papers include a World Health Organization-UNICEF study on health needs in developing countries in 1975, internal Bank memoranda and records relating to energy and the oil crisis from 1973-1974, two Bank papers on the economic evaluation of public utilities projects 1974-1975, and Bank papers on topics of interest to Bell, ranging from rural roads to procedures for project documentation.