Washington Post on A16

[Brad De Long]

>Brad De Long:
>
>Thus the real choice is between the Armey-Nader position of no IMF
>and laissez-faire in international finance, the Summers position of
>an IMF that sticks to its core competence of crisis management and
>gets out of the long-term loan long-term economic management business
>(where the IMF is too understaffed to do a good job), and the status
>quo.
>==========
>
>Where do Lance Taylor's proposals fit in the above menu of options?
>
>Ian

I find it hard to evaluate Lance's model of what has been going on. 
Does he really think that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system 
was responsible for the productivity growth slowdown in the U.S.? The 
U.S. in the 1970s does not seem to me to have been an open enough 
economy for this to have been the case. So I have a hard following 
his arguments for what should be done in the industrial core...

On the periphery I like most of what Lance has to say--with the 
caveat that he has a hard time thinking about institution design in 
the context of large-scale government failure...

Brad DeLong