After more than two decades of application of neoliberal economic policies in the developing world, we are in a position to pass unequivocal judgment on their record. The picture is not pretty. Consider economic growth first. In Latin America, only three countries have grown faster during the 1990s than in the 1950-80 period. And one of these three was Argentina, a country whose hopes of economic salvation through financial integration with the world economy now lie in ruins. Among the former socialist economies, real output still stands below 1990 levels in all but four of them. And poverty rates remain higher than in 1990 even in Poland, unquestionably the most successful of the East European countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, results remain very disappointing, and far worse than those obtained prior to the late 1970s.

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