By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: When questioned recently about a constitutional law professor who was arrested for lecturing at an institute run by the country’s main pro-Kurdish political party, Turkey’s interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, couldn’t hide his irritation: “I am having a hard time understanding those saying a professor should not be arrested while thousands of …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: As if the economic ramifications of a full-blown Greek default were not terrifying enough, the political consequences could be far worse. A chaotic eurozone breakup would cause irreparable damage to the European integration project, the central pillar of Europe’s political stability since World War II. It would destabilize not only the highly-indebted …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s birth. Friedman was one of the twentieth century’s leading economists, a Nobel Prize winner who made notable contributions to monetary policy and consumption theory. But he will be remembered primarily as the visionary who provided the intellectual firepower for free-market enthusiasts during …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Greedy banks, bad economic ideas, incompetent politicians: there is no shortage of culprits for the economic crisis in which rich countries are engulfed. But there is also something more fundamental at play, a flaw that lies deeper than the responsibility of individual decision-makers. Democracies are notoriously bad at producing credible bargains …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Perhaps for the first time in modern history, the future of the global economy lies in the hands of poor countries. The United States and Europe struggle on as wounded giants, casualties of their financial excesses and political paralysis. They seem condemned by their heavy debt burdens to years of stagnation or …
By Dani Rodrik ISTANBUL: In a Hollywood courtroom drama, you know that the hero, set up by the bad guys, will eventually be cleared — but not before the noose tightens around his neck. Just when it looks like the accumulating evidence has condemned him, a sudden turn of events will prove his innocence and expose …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Greece has bought some time with a new package of financial support, but the country is not out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen whether the souped-up austerity policies that Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government has promised will prove to be politically acceptable and sustainable. History suggests some grounds …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: I have been presenting my new book “The Globalization Paradox” to different groups of late. By now I am used to all types of comments from the audience. But at a recent book-launch event, the economist assigned to discuss the book surprised me with an unexpected criticism. “Rodrik wants to make the …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Not long ago, a Harvard colleague wrote to me that Saif Al-Islam El-Qaddafi, a son of Libya’s dictator, would be in town and wanted to meet me. He is an interesting fellow, my colleague said, with a doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); I would enjoy talking …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Perhaps the most striking finding in the United Nations’ recent 20th anniversary Human Development Report is the outstanding performance of the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Here was Tunisia, ranked sixth among 135 countries in terms of improvement in its Human Development Index (HDI) over the previous four …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Suppose that the world’s leading policymakers were to meet again in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to design a new global economic order. They would naturally be preoccupied with today’s problems: the eurozone crisis, global recovery, financial regulation, international macroeconomic imbalances, and so on. But addressing these issues would require the assembled leaders …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: When Greece was bailed out by a joint eurozone-IMF rescue package back in May, it was clear that the deal had bought only a temporary respite. Now the other shoe has dropped. With Ireland’s troubles threatening to spill over to Portugal, Spain, and even Italy, it is time to rethink the viability …
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Everybody agrees that the world economy is ill, but the diagnosis apparently depends on which corner of it you happen to inhabit. In Washington, accusing fingers point to China, blaming its currency policy for causing large trade imbalances and “destroying jobs” in the United States. Go to Seoul or Brasilia, and you …
