Thursday, March 6, 2014
Now they tell us! The IMF admits that inequality slows growth
Posted by
Kathleen Geier
My latest for The Nation concerns the a stunning reversal by the IMF. Last week, IMF researchers finally 'fessed up to something that leading economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have been arguing for some time now: that inequality slows economic growth. That they finally admitted this is progress -- even though it doesn't begin to undo the decades of damage that IMF austerity policies have inflicted across the globe. The real question is: will this admission cause them to reverse course and adopt the kinds of anti-inequality, pro-growth economic politics that have been so successful in countries like Bolivia? We shall see.
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This is not the first internal IMF discussion that has included that point of view. I predict it will have little effect on IMF behavior. Until advocates for equality get some political power, nothing will happen. The other side lost the intellectual battle long ago without it making a difference.
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