Name: ワシントンコンセンサス (Washington Consensus)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T06:51:21.000Z
Duration: 51 min 19 s
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The Washington Consensus is a set of 10 economic policy prescriptions considered

to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked

developing countries by Washington, D.C.–based institutions such as the

International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the US Treasury Department. It was

coined in 1989 by English economist John Williamson. The prescriptions

encompassed policies in such areas as macroeconomic stabilization, economic

opening with respect to both trade and investment, and the expansion of market

forces within the domestic economy. Subsequent to Williamson's use of the

terminology, and despite his emphatic opposition, the phrase Washington

Consensus has come to be used fairly widely in a second, broader sense, to

refer to a more general orientation towards a strongly market-based

approach. In emphasizing the magnitude of the difference between the two

alternative definitions, Williamson himself has argued that his ten

original, narrowly defined prescriptions have largely acquired the status of

"motherhood and apple pie", whereas the subsequent broader definition,

representing a form of neoliberal manifesto, "never enjoyed a consensus

[in Washington] or anywhere much else" and can reasonably be said to be dead.

Discussion of the Washington Consensus has long been contentious. Partly this

reflects a lack of agreement over what is meant by the term, in face of the

contrast between the broader and narrower definitions But there are also

substantive differences involved over the merits and consequences of the

various policy prescriptions involved. Some critics take issue, for example,

with the original Consensus's emphasis on the opening of developing countries

to global markets, and/or with what they see as an excessive focus on

strengthening the influence of domestic market forces, arguably at the expense

of key functions of the state. For other commentators the issue is more what is

missing, including such areas as institution-building and targeted

efforts to improve opportunities for the weakest in society. Despite these areas

of controversy, a number of developmental institutions and

economists would by now accept the more general proposition that strategies best

work if they are specifically designed to the certain circumstances of the

= Original sense: Williamson's Ten Points =

The concept and name of the Washington Consensus were first presented in 1989

by John Williamson, an economist from the Institute for International

Economics, an international economic think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Williamson used the term to summarize commonly shared themes among policy

advice by Washington-based institutions at the time, such as the International

Monetary Fund, World Bank, and U.S. Treasury Department, which were believed

to be necessary for the recovery of countries in Latin America from the

economic and financial crises of the 1980s.

The consensus as originally stated by Williamson included ten broad sets of

relatively specific policy recommendations:

Fiscal policy discipline, with avoidance of large fiscal deficits relative to

subsidies toward broad-based provision of key pro-growth, pro-poor services

like primary education, primary health care and infrastructure investment;

Tax reform, broadening the tax base and adopting moderate marginal tax rates;

Interest rates that are market determined and positive in real terms;

Competitive exchange rates; Trade liberalization: liberalization of

imports, with particular emphasis on elimination of quantitative

restrictions; any trade protection to be provided by low and relatively uniform

tariffs; Liberalization of inward foreign direct

investment; Privatization of state enterprises;

Deregulation: abolition of regulations that impede market entry or restrict

competition, except for those justified on safety, environmental and consumer

protection grounds, and prudential oversight of financial institutions;

Legal security for property rights. = Origins of policy agenda =

Although Williamson's label of the Washington Consensus draws attention to

the role of the Washington-based agencies in promoting the above agenda,

a number of authors have stressed that Latin American policy-makers arrived at

their own packages of policy reforms primarily based on their own analysis of

their countries' situations. Thus, according to Joseph Stanislaw and Daniel

Yergin, authors of The Commanding Heights, the policy prescriptions

described in the Washington Consensus were "developed in Latin America, by

Latin Americans, in response to what was happening both within and outside the

region." Joseph Stiglitz has written that "the Washington Consensus policies

were designed to respond to the very real problems in Latin America and made

considerable sense". In view of the implication conveyed by the term

Washington Consensus that the policies were largely external in origin,

Stanislaw and Yergin report that the term's creator, John Williamson, has

"regretted the term ever since", stating "it is difficult to think of a less

diplomatic label." A 2010 paper by Nancy Birdsall, Augusto

de la Torre, and Felipe Valencia Caicedo likewise suggests that the policies in

the original consensus were largely a creation of Latin American politicians

and technocrats, with Williamson's role having been to gather the ten points in

one place for the first time, rather than to "create" the package of

policies. In Williamson's own words from 2002:

= Broad sense = Williamson recognizes that the term has

commonly been used with a different meaning from his original prescription;

he opposes the alternative use of the term, which became common after his

initial formulation, to cover a broader market fundamentalism or "neoliberal"

agenda. I of course never intended my term to

imply policies like capital account liberalization, monetarism, supply-side

economics, or a minimal state, which I think of as the quintessentially

neoliberal ideas. If that is how the term is interpreted, then we can all

enjoy its wake, although let us at least have the decency to recognize that these

ideas have rarely dominated thought in Washington and certainly never commanded

a consensus there or anywhere much else...

More specifically, Williamson argues that the first three of his ten

prescriptions are uncontroversial in the economic community, while recognizing

that the others have evoked some controversy. He argues that one of the

least controversial prescriptions, the redirection of spending to

infrastructure, health care, and education, has often been neglected. He

also argues that, while the prescriptions were focused on reducing

certain functions of government, they would also strengthen government's

ability to undertake other actions such as supporting education and health.

Williamson says that he does not endorse market fundamentalism, and believes that

the Consensus prescriptions, if implemented correctly, would benefit the

poor. In a book edited with Pedro-Pablo Kuczynski in 2003, Williamson laid out