F. Halsey Rogers, a World Bank economist in the Development Research Group, has put together a helpful summary of the impact of the crisis on development thinking. Clearly, financial markets in rich countries went haywire. What should this mean for the role of markets in developing countries?
Thus on the question of the respective roles of the market and state, the crisis reinforces the past decade’s movement toward a balanced, less ideological approach. This approach gives primacy to the private sector as driver of growth, employment, and productivity, but recognizes that government may need to create the road network, metaphorically and literally, on which private firms can drive.
There are also useful summaries of the debates on macroeconomic management, globalization, and industrial policy. Rogers concludes that the financial crisis will, on average, strengthen the movement towards a post-Washington Consensus. I suspect he is right, but I think the development of a Consensus -- whether 'post' or 'not' -- is problematic in and of itself.
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