Washington Post on A16

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Wed Apr 19 17:36:55 PDT 2000



>Brad, do you include Jeff Sachs?
> >

Damned if I understand why Sachs signed the Meltzer Report. His beef (and my beef) with the IMF in Mexico and East Asia is that it didn't loan *enough* money and didn't loan it for long *enough* periods of time, and that it required changes in domestic policy on the periphery that were at best irrelevant--for the crisis was made not on the periphery but in the minds of people in Manhattan.

So he signs a report that says that the IMF should have loaned zero dollars to Mexico for zero months.

I think he horse traded with Meltzer: Meltzer said he would support debt elimination for the poorest nations that had borrowed in the past if Sachs supported a severe reduction in the size of the IMF looking forward.

I think Sachs got taken...

Brad DeLong



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