Venezuela Before Chávez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0271056320 ISBN 13: 9780271056326

Publisher: Penn State University Press, 2015

Synopsis

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Venezuela had one of the poorest economies in Latin America, but by 1970 it had become the richest country in the region and one of the twenty richest countries in the world, ahead of countries such as Greece, Israel, and Spain. Between 1978 and 2001, however, Venezuela’s economy went sharply in reverse, with non-oil GDP declining by almost 19 percent and oil GDP by an astonishing 65 percent. What accounts for this drastic turnabout? The editors of Venezuela Before Chávez, who each played a policymaking role in the country’s economy during the past two decades, have brought together a group of economists and political scientists to examine systematically the impact of a wide range of factors affecting the economy’s collapse, from the cost of labor regulation and the development of financial markets to the weakening of democratic governance and the politics of decisions about industrial policy.

Aside from the editors, the contributors are Omar Bello, Adriana Bermúdez, Matías Braun, Javier Corrales, Jonathan Di John, Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna, Samuel Freije, Dan Levy, Robert MacCulloch, Osmel Manzano, Francisco Monaldi, María Antonia Moreno, Daniel Ortega, Michael Penfold, José Pineda, Lant Pritchett, Cameron A. Shelton, and Dean Yang.

About this title

About the Author:

Ricardo Hausmann is Professor of the Practice of Economic Development and Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He served as Venezuela’s Minister of Planning in 1992–93.

Francisco R. Rodríguez is Chief Andean Economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. From 2000 to 2004 he served as Chief Economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly.

Review:

“This objective and expert evaluation of the Venezuelan economy will become an indispensable reference for any future debates on the legacy of the Chávez era.”

—Moisés Naím, author of The End of Power

“Venezuela Before Chávez is not just a product of scrupulous academic research. It is also, as the authors understand—and as present circumstances in the country attest—a helpful and coherent guide for those who devise policies and make decisions in a country so reliant on oil.”

—Michael Shifter, ReVista Magazine

“This is a fine book on Venezuela and its economic and sociopolitical problems during the 20 years preceding the beginning, in 1999, of the Hugo Chávez Frías administration. . . . The story that unfolds in this excellent contribution to the literature is a good one, and the book is likely to become essential reading for understanding Venezuela’s economic decline during the last two decades of the twentieth century.”

—Brian McBeth, Hispanic American Historical Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0271056320
• ISBN 13: 9780271056326
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 488
• Editor: Hausmann Ricardo, Rodríguez Francisco R.