Dani Rodrik
Dani Rodrik, Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the first recipient of the Social Science Research Council’s Albert O. Hirschman Prize. His latest book is One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth.
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2010-03-11
| On February 19, the IMF published a policy note that reversed its long-held position on capital controls and effectively ended the era of border-free global finance. Taxes and other restrictions on capital inflows, the IMF’s economists wrote, can be helpful, and they constitute a “legitimate part” of policymakers’ toolkit.... read |
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2010-02-11
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Global coordination of banking regulation, like global governance, sounds good - especially to bankers. That is because they know that it cannot deliver the tough regulations, closely tailored to domestic economic and political requirements, which financial markets badly need following the worst upheaval the world economy has experienced since the Great Depression.... read |
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2010-01-12
| Americans and Europeans blithely assume that China will become more like them as its economy develops and its population gets richer. But a world order centered on China will reflect Chinese values rather than Western ones - that is, if China can continue its rapid economic growth and maintain its social cohesion and political unity. ... read |
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2009-12-11
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Currency undervaluation is currently the Chinese government’s main instrument for subsidizing manufacturing and other tradable sectors, and therefore promoting growth through structural change. The massive global current-account imbalances that have resulted are the price that China and the world economy must pay for WTO rules that prohibit direct industrial policies.... read |
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2009-11-11
| The IMF has slapped Brazil's wrist for daring to impose a 2% tax on short-term capital inflows. But such capital controls make a lot of sense, because “hot” inflows make it difficult for financially open economies like Brazil to maintain a competitive currency, depriving them of what is in effect the most potent form of industrial policy imaginable.... read |
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2009-10-12
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There was a dog that didn’t bark during the financial crisis: the growing protectionist threat. Despite much hue and cry about it, governments have in fact imposed remarkably few trade barriers on imports, and the world economy remains as open as it was before the crisis struck.... read |
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2009-09-11
| In late August, Adair Turner, the head of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, shocked the Anglo-American empire of finance by coming out in support of a Tobin tax – a global tax on financial transactions. Predictably, Adair's proposal was met with a storm of criticism by bankers, which suggests why implementing such a tax would be a very good idea.... read |
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2009-08-11
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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s term ends in January, and President Barack Obama must decide before then: either re-appoint Bernanke or go with someone else. Given Bernanke's complicity in the Alan Greenspan-era Fed's enthrallment with Wall Street, he deserves to be replaced.... read |
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2009-07-10
| Adam Smith and his liberal followers decisively won the intellectual battle against mercantilist models of capitalism. But recent history tells a more ambiguous story: growth champions such as Japan in the 1950’s and 1960’s, South Korea from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, and China since the early 1980’s have all had activist governments collaborating closely with large business. ... read |
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The Bumpy Road Ahead
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Dani Rodrik 
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If stock market and interest-rate spreads are to be believed, the US economy has seen the worst and may be on its way to a slow recovery. But the troubles for the world economy are just starting, and if globalization does not get the fix it needs, economic prospects will be dim for rich and poor countries alike.... read
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2005-08-03
| Trade and aid have become international buzzwords. More aid (including debt relief) and greater access to rich countries’ markets for poor countries’ products now appears to be at the top of the global agenda. Indeed, the debate nowadays is not about what to do, but how much to do, and how fast.... read |
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2008-07-11
| There was a time when world leaders could comfort themselves with the thought that opposition to globalization consisted of violent anarchists, self-serving protectionists, trade unionists, and ignorant, if idealistic youth. But what makes news nowadays is the growing list of mainstream economists who are questioning globalization’s supposedly unmitigated virtues. ... read |
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2008-03-13
| Is globalization mainly a force for good, enabling poor nations to lift themselves up from poverty, or does it create vast opportunities only for a small minority? To answer these questions, look no farther than soccer. ... read |
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2008-10-10
| Perhaps it is futile to look for the single cause without which America's financial system would not have blown up. There were so many contributing factors that this may have been a case of a “perfect storm,” a rare failure that required a large number of stars to be in alignment simultaneously.... read |
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2005-11-21
| Imagine that the world’s trade ministers simply walk away from their forthcoming Hong Kong meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with this simple declaration: “We failed to reach an agreement; we’ll try to do better next time.” This would bring the so-called Doha “Development” Round to an unsuccessful conclusion, but it would be no disaster. ... read |
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2007-01-10
| Something is amiss in the world of finance. The problem is not another financial meltdown in an emerging market, with the predictable contagion that engulfs neighboring countries. Even the most exposed countries handled the last round of financial shocks, in May and June 2006, relatively comfortably. Instead, the problem this time around is one that relatively calm times have helped reveal: the predicted benefits of financial globalization are nowhere to be seen. ... read |
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2008-04-11
| Most financial market participants oppose government regulation that takes the form of direct inhibitions on transactions. But we restrict access to most drugs, impose heavy taxes and marketing constraints on tobacco, and control gun ownership for a good reason: our ability to monitor and regulate behavior is necessarily imperfect.... read |
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2008-06-11
| At the end of May, a star-studded World Bank commission on economic growth rejected much of the traditional framework for advising policy makers in developing countries. Rather than offering facile answers such as “just let markets work” or “just get governance right,” the commission rightly emphasizes that each country must devise its own mix of remedies.... read |
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2004-09-06
| Most economists now agree that institutional quality holds the key to prosperity. Rich countries are places where investors feel secure in their property rights, the rule of law prevails, private incentives are aligned with social objectives, monetary and fiscal policies are solidly grounded, risks are mediated through social insurance, and citizens have recourse to civil liberties and political representation. Poor countries are where these arrangements are absent or ill-formed. ... read |
2010-03-11
