relevant basic research is both produced and used.<sup>4</sup> As the literature on organizations has emphasized, a key factor is the ability to exploit the internal division of labor to support innovation (Hage, 1999). The role of a designated ―research department‖ in bringing together internal research capabilities and in absorbing new external information to assure innovation has long been recognized in the literature (following, in particular, Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). But having such a department does not guarantee that practitioners will have the incentive to learn from research, and that the research produced will serve their needs. In practice, there may well be frictions within an organization that inhibit learning even when the incentive is there.

The World Bank (WB) has a department dedicated to research, the Development Research Group (DECRG), within the Development Economics Vice-Presidency (DEC), as well as researchers scattered across other units. Research accounts for roughly 1% of Bank staff; there are about 75 full-time research staff in DECRG and probably another 25 or so full-time equivalent researchers outside DECRG.<sup>5</sup> DECRG spans all sectors of the Bank’s work. Its research is almost invariably empirical and typically draws on economics as the primary discipline, though increasingly drawing on insights from other social sciences.<sup>6</sup> By objective criteria, the scale and quality of its research on development exceeds that of virtually all other international agencies and universities.<sup>7</sup> DECRG aims in part to serve the needs of its operational units, which provide development lending and policy advice to developing countries.<sup>8</sup> However, we know very little about the demand for the Bank’s research among the organization’s operational staff. How familiar are they with Bank research? How much do they rely on it for their work? How do the answers to these questions vary across units and sectors of

> 4 On the (broadly similar) challenges facing private firms in deciding whether to invest in basic research see the discussion in Rosenberg (1990).

> 5 A precise count is not available. My count excludes research assistants.

> 6 It has been argued that the heavy reliance on economics reflects an undesirable lack of ―ideological pluralism‖ at the Bank (Weaver, 2009, p. 505). While multiple ideologies might well balance out, Bank research (in common with mainstream economics and other social sciences) aims to be non-ideological. It is unlikely that the work of DECRG would attain its current high level of academic credibility if it failed in that aim.

> 7 This is based on the IDEAS rankings using a composite index of 20 variables measuring publications, downloads and citations based on the RePEc data; the rankings and details can be found here. If one confines attention to the Bank’s research department then the University of Chicago alone does better. Also see the data on citations assembled in Ravallion and Wagstaff (2010).

> 8 External audiences are also important but are not the focus of this paper. For data and analysis on the impacts of World Bank research on external clients see Ravallion and Wagstaff (2010).

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