O'Neill: "WB has driven poor countries into a ditch"

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Feb 22 12:08:53 PST 2002


Brad DeLong wrote:


>And how are countries to get the hard currency to buy the
>western-made capital goods that embody so much technology?

That's not the most urgent priority for a low-income country, which needs to feed and house people and teach them to read. A lot of hard currency debt is just a millstone, and the compulsion to earn dollars and euros is a distraction from a lot of humanly urgent tasks.

If the model worked, why are debt burdens still so high, and income gaps (aside from China and a few other Asian countries) wider than ever?


>The problem with the WB projects is not that they are
>export-oriented, but that the WB is a lousy judge of what
>export-oriented projects would be successful...

Who does? The Market?

Doug



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