Easterly: Back to Basics

Easterly writes:

Until recently, there had been over two decades of economists flogging a dead horse called the Washington Consensus, which was an economic policy view summarized by John Williamson in 1980.

That consensus included guess what: deregulation, openness to trade, competitive markets and fiscal austerity. It was bad that these ideas had a "Washington" label attached, because the World Bank and IMF often forced such principles--and very specific reforms that they thought, often erroneously, followed from such principles--down the throats of poor country governments. Such coercion violates democratic rights of poor people, but it doesn't mean the original Consensus principles were bad in of themselves--they were mild assertions of mainstream economic ideas.

Read the whole thing; I will discuss in class on Thursday.