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  • Newsart for What Use Are Economists?

    What Use Are Economists?

    CAMBRIDGE – When the stakes are high, it is no surprise that battling political opponents use whatever support they can garner from economis…

  • Newsart for The New Mercantilist Challenge

    The New Mercantilist Challenge

    CAMBRIDGE – The history of economics is largely a struggle between two opposing schools of thought, “liberalism” and “mercantilism.” Economi…

  • Newsart for Global Capital Rules

    Global Capital Rules

    CAMBRIDGE – It’s official. The International Monetary Fund has put its stamp of approval on capital controls, thereby legitimizing the use o…

  • Newsart for The Truth About Sovereignty

    The Truth About Sovereignty

    CAMBRIDGE – In the French parliament’s recent debate on Europe’s new fiscal treaty, the country’s Socialist government vehemently denied tha…

  • Newsart for No More Growth Miracles

    No More Growth Miracles

    CAMBRIDGE – A year ago, economic analysts were giddy with optimism about the prospects for economic growth in the developing world. In contr…

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Dani Rodrik: Roads to Prosperity

Is free trade always the best policy? Should developing countries open their financial systems? Do foreign-exchange controls serve any useful purpose in our globalized world?

Anyone who reads economics knows that it is often aridly impervious to the cultural specificities and political constraints that shape real-world events. Pages filled with equations describe a world not of fallible people and imperfect governments, but of "agents" and "actors" who are supposedly as rational as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

The dominance of neoclassical economics has led to a rigid belief that free trade, small government, lower taxes, and financial openness are appropriate at all times and in all circumstances. But a few dissident economists, observing how and why countries actually develop, have been chipping away at this orthodoxy.

Dani Rodrik, a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, is one of this movement’s most imaginative and creative thinkers. He is a leading authority on globalization and economic development, and his unconventional yet rigorous analyses have helped undermine the Washington Consensus. A “clinical” economist, he has advocated heterodox development policies and a social-welfare agenda to complement globalization and allow developing countries to withstand the financial crises that have swept over them during the past two decades.

Enlivened by the boldness and insight that mark his award-winning scholarship, Dani Rodrik's monthly commentaries, written exclusively for Project Syndicate, get to the heart of today's controversies surrounding globalization and economic development. Roads to Prosperity forges a singular path – grounded in the historical experience of countries struggling to develop – through the thickets of industrial policy, international trade, financial liberalization, global governance, and institutional reform.

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Dani Rodrik

Dani Rodrik is Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a leading scholar of globalization and economic development. His most recent book is The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.

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