Tag Archives: Hausmann

Downhill I have not written on the problems in the region for a while now (last stuff that is more comprehensive here in the talk at Keene, for example), in part, because the whole theme is a bit depressing (more recently the Honduras crisis, and the return of the right in Chile). As I have noted before, there is no doubt that the collapse of commodity prices has played a significant role in the downturn in the region, but it is also true that a lot of the problems are political in...

The hunger games Ricardo Hausmann blames the situation in Venezuela to excessive heterodox policies. The piece is not particularly well written, but if you look for the deep cause of the crisis, according to Hausmann, then you must conclude that it is a fiscal one. The government spent too much, and got into too much debt. In his words: Governments often struggle to balance their books, leading to over-indebtedness and financial trouble. Yet fiscal prudence is one of the most frequently...