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Personal Papers of Adrian Wood
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East Asia and Pacific Regional Vice Presidency, China Division records

Series consists of records related to Wood's work in the China Division of the East Asia and Pacific Regional Vice Presidency (EAPVP) in which he worked from 1980 to 1985. Records primarily consist of hand-written notes taken by Wood during three separate trips to China.

Records relate to Wood's travel to China undertaken between October and December 1980 in support of the preparation of the World Bank publication China: Socialist Economic Development (1981). The nine-volume report was the Bank's first report on the Chinese economy. Wood served as the publication's principal economist. Records include notes Woods created during his attendance at two rounds of meetings in Beijing, and field notes from travel to Gansu province and Sichuan province. Meeting and field notes are divided into three sections reflecting these engagements. Photos related to the mission are also included, as are lists ofofficials met with by Wood's mission team and correspondence from 1991 between Wood and Zhu Fu Lin, a contact he made during the 1980 mission.

Records relating to Wood's mission to China in July 1982 to participate in the Moganshan conference on economic reform in China are included. The conference was organized by the World Bank and China's Price Research Centre, whose aim was dialogue between East European and Chinese economists. The entire engagement consisted of: a meeting of World Bank and East European participants on July 5, 1982 at Wolfson College, Oxford, England; an introductory meeting on July 9, 1982 with Chinese counterparts in Beijing; the conference at a resort on Mo Gan mountain in Zhejiang province from July 11-16, 1982; visits to Chinese cities (Wood and his team visited Shanghai and Chongqing between July 18-26, 1982); and final plenary meetings in Beijing on July 27-29, 1982. Records relating to the conference consist of: Terms of Reference; handwritten meeting and field notes; and photos.

Also included are records relating to Wood's travel to China in 1983, 1984, and 1985 for preparation of the World Bank report China: Long-Term Issues and Options (1985), for which Wood served as deputy mission chief and coordinator of the main report. Records are divided into six parts: a report planning note, authored by Wood, dated February 16, 1983; notes from meetings held in Beijing from September 13-19, 1983, to discuss planning of the report; notes on system reform from February and April-May 1984 missions; notes from February 13-23, 1984 mission to Beijing and Wuhan; notes from April-May 1984 mission to Beijing, Jiangsu, and Gansu; and notes from March 1985 mission during which a draft version of the report was discussed and high-level meetings with Chinese officials were held. Supplementary folders contain photos from the mission and documents related to the 1985 report, consisting of contact lists and a memo on income distribution data given to the economic mission.

Records in this series also relate to World Bank support for China's investment decisions, project planning, and shadow pricing. Records dating from 1981 to 1984 include: Bank memoranda on these topics; handwritten notes from relevant meetings and missions; notes relating to the preparation of a project appraisal manual for the China Investment Bank (CIB) and the finalized CIB appraisal manual titled "Appraisal Manual for Industrial Credit Projects" dated March 1983; and two papers titled "Economic Evaluation of Investment Projects: Possibilities and Problems of Applying Western Methods in China" (authored by Wood) and "Economic Analysis of Aluminum Milling in Shanghai" (authored by Wood and Shinji Ichishima). A photo from November 1981 from a Beijing meeting with the CIB manual team is also included.

Personal Papers of Adrian Wood

  • WB IBRD/IDA WB_IBRD/IDA_121
  • Fonds
  • 1980 - 1995, 2015 - 2018

Fonds contains field notes and other documents from Adrian Wood's work on China as a member of the World Bank's China Division from 1980 to 1985, material related to his World Bank consultancies on China from 1985 to 1995, and documents in the form of articles and presentation slides containing his retrospective views from 2015 to 2018. Also included are photos related to mission and conference travel from Wood's time at the Bank and as a consultant.

Note that a small number of annotations on the recordsand paper inserts containing explanatory notes have been added by Adrian Wood in 2022 prior to the transfer of the records to WBG Archives' custody, and after his employment at the World Bank Group.

Wood, Adrian

Post-Bank research and presentations on China

Records in this series relate to activities in which Adrian Wood participated following his departure from the World Bank in 1985 and which relate to his ongoing work on China. This work took the form of consultancies for the World Bank, participation in conferences, presentations, and writing. Records relate to the following activities: participation in the Bashan Lun ("boat") conference (1985); various seminars and lectures on China (1985-1992); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) consultancy on system reform in Vietnam and China (1989-90); World Bank consultancy in support of China's Country Economic Memorandum (1989, report published in 1990); and research and writing on joint stock companies, enterprise reform, public ownership, and market economy transition. Records consist of conference programs, lists of conference participants, conference invitations, presentation notes and slides, field notes, journey reports, papers, and unpublished materials. Photos related to many of the activities listed above are also included in this series.

This series also consists of materials related to retrospective writings and presentations on China by Wood. Included are: an article that accompanied the reprinting of the 1985 report "China: Long-Term Development Issues and Options"; notes and slides from a 2017 presentation in Beijing on practical lessons from China's low-to-middle income transition; notes and slides from a 2017 presentation at the University of Oxford called "The Evolving Influence of Socialism on China?s Economic Development"; and notes and slides for the final version of a lecture Wood gave numerous times between 2005 and 2015 titled "Trade, Development and China: Applying Heckscher-Ohlin Theory".

Note that a number of the papers and presentation materials in this series are available in both paper and electronic format.