ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the results of the latest wave of policy entrepreneurship, resulting from perceived failures of the most recent return to the market under neoliberal policies in the 1980s. Some countries have entered into a post-neoliberal period with bold experiments in both industrial policy and redistribution. The limitations on industrial policy experiments suggest the need for increased attention to the timing of policies, and state autonomy and capacity. The chapter also explores three general economic policy strategies, neoliberal, Bolivarian, and industrial policy lite, over the last three decades. What we found in terms of liberalization, economic growth, and distribution was that the general strategy does not seem to matter. Economic growth and absolute poverty reduction have been generally positive but volatile throughout the region. The only difference we found by strategy was in the Bolivarian countries where relative inequality declined after adoption of aggressive policies to capture and redistribute mining rent.
