Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Professor of Professional Practice in International Development at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He has taught at Harvard University and New York University, and is the author of numerous studies on international economics and development.
The political opening that occurred in many of the region's countries in the 1930s and 1940s eventually gave way to the political disarray of the 1960s and the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. A … read more
Recent experience in Europe suggests that fiscal contraction cannot be expansionary. In two South American countries, however, the idea that cutting government spending can spur growth should be revis… read more
The international press has had a hard time labeling the political positions of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, though most seem to have settled on “centrist.” While that choice is unde… read more
If the predictions of a narrative or ideology conflict with reality, one can either change the narrative or change the facts. The second option arises – and today is arising more often – because ideol… read more
How should Latin America respond to US President Donald Trump’s America-first approach to the global economy? Here’s one possible answer: build a free-trade area of the Americas – and leave the US out… read more
Anti-populists in the US, the UK, and elsewhere must grasp the reality that bad policies pay off, both economically and politically, long before they become toxic. If critics do not understand that an… read more
Populists are doing all they can do to undermine liberal democracy. But liberal democracy's current troubles may also reflect the widening gap between its practice and the expectations raised by some … read more
Donald Trump reached the White House by bringing out the worst in the US electorate, stoking xenophobic and other dangerous impulses to advance his campaign. The question for Latin Americans is whethe… read more
The underlying view is that rising populism in the US and Europe is a straightforward consequence of globalization and its unwanted effects: lost jobs and stagnant middle-class incomes. But populism i… read more
