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  5. Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform

Journal of Economic Literature

ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)

Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform

  • Dani Rodrik
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 44, no. 4, December 2006
(pp. 973–987)
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Abstract

Proponents and critics alike agree that the policies spawned by the Washington Consensus have not produced the desired results. The debate now is not over whether the Washington Consensus is dead or alive, but over what will replace it. An important marker in this intellectual terrain is the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform (2005).With its emphasis on humility, policy diversity, selective and modest reforms, and experimentation, this is a rather extraordinary document demonstrating the extent to which the thinking of the development policy community has been transformed over the years. But there are other competing perspectives as well. One (trumpeted elsewhere in Washington) puts faith on extensive institutional reform, and another (exemplified by the U.N. Millennium Report) puts faith on foreign aid. Sorting intelligently among these diverse perspectives requires an explicitly diagnostic approach that recognizes that the binding constraints on growth differ from setting to setting.

Citation

Rodrik, Dani. 2006. "Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform." Journal of Economic Literature, 44 (4): 973–987. DOI: 10.1257/jel.44.4.973

JEL Classification

  • E63 Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
  • F13 Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
  • L33 Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises and Nonprofit Institutions; Privatization; Contracting Out
  • O10 Economic Development: General
  • O23 Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
  • O47 Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence