Det har under många år försiggått en debatt om Washington Consensus, som kort kan beskrivas på följande sätt:

The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the ”standard” reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and United States Department of the Treasury. The term was first used in 1989 by English economist John Williamson.

Dessa tio reformrekommendationer återges i denna tabell (källa):

I debatten har begreppet kommit att få en vidare betydelse och symbolisera marknadsvänliga reformer mer allmänt, ofta av kritiker kallade ”neoliberala” reformer. Bortom debattens högstämda retorik återstår dock frågan: Lyckades reformer i Washington Consensus anda uppnå målet om att öka det ekonomiska välståndet? Det undersöks i den nya studien ”The Washington Consensus Works: Causal Effects of Reform, 1970–2015”. Resultat:

We defined generalized reform as a discrete, sustained jump in an index of economic freedom, whose components are consistent with the main tenets of the Washington Consensus. We identify 49 cases of generalized reform in a sample of 141 countries from 1970 to 2015. The average treatment effect associated with these reforms is positive, sizeable, and significant over 5- and 10-year windows. Specifically, over a 5-year horizon, we find growth is 2.07 to 2.87 percentage points higher in the treated countries compared to their matched controls. Over a 10-year horizon, we find a 1.03–1.93 percentage point increase compared to our counterfactual group. These effects are substantial and the results are robust to different thresholds for defining reform and different estimation methods.

Det tycks alltså som att reformer som ökar inslagen av marknadsekonomi och rättsstat leder till ökat välstånd på fem och tio års sikt. Kanske var Washington Consensus inte så dumt ändå?