on a paper. “How can a developing country catch up to developed countries?” he asked. It was the polarizing question at the center of his life’s work, and he was now in a position to act on his answer. “We see a lot of failures and only a few successes,” he said. Lin had a staff of almost three hundred economists and other researchers, whose work helped the Bank and the governments of poor countries decide on strategies for raising income levels, a subject that had been riven for decades by ideological debate. Within weeks of his arrival, the planet was hit by the most serious financial crisis
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