ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we examine the issues related to the problem of restoring growth in Latin America from the standpoint of economic policy. Consequently, one of our main purposes is to extract some conclusions from the experience of adjustment-with-stagnation experienced by most Latin-American countries throughout the 1980s. To fulfil this objective, it is almost as important to examine the policy reform proposals that are being made by the World Bank, the IMF and the literature produced by the Washington think-tanks, which gave rise to the ‘Washington Consensus’ about policy reform (Williamson 1990), as it is to analyse the structural disequilibria that arose during the adjustment period of the 1980s. These proposals are strongly determining the direction of the actual reforms that the most important countries in the region are putting into practice. Therefore, part of this chapter is devoted to assessing the suitability of the theoretical framework that supports the ‘Washington’ diagnosis and its concrete policy reform proposals as well. Besides the analysis of the actual economic disequilibria and the evaluation of the ‘Washington Consensus’, a third purpose of the chapter is to advance and evaluate some policy reform proposals aimed at restoring growth.
