The Cambridge Consensus

My new Moscow Times piece on the future of privatization policy and legislation in Georgia under new leadership. President Saakashvili enacted a set of laws (e.g. Law on Economic Liberty) and put in place an aggressive privatization program that made Georgia a champion/frontline experimenter in the field globally. With new leadership, the country might take a more conservative approach. However, this might not be a bad thing.

The Moscow Times: Selling the Georgian Dream

MOSCOW: Eight years ago, an enthusiastic crowd gathered in front of the Tbilisi parliament for Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidential inauguration. “We must create the Georgia that our ancestors dreamed of,” he told them, “the Georgia that we dream of.”

His dream was that of a democratic, NATO member country with a growing liberalized economy, low corruption and high living standards.Since then, President Saakashvili turned the economy around from one with perpetually contracting GDP to a forecasted 6 percent growth rate in 2012, pursuing what became his trademark aggressive privatization and liberalization programs. The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal’s Economic Freedom Index ranked Georgia ninth out of 184 countries in 2012 (up from 113th in 2003). But voters believed that reform spiked unemployment to 16 percent and picked another dream catcher: Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party.

In his election strategy, newly elected Prime Minister Ivanishvili addressed popular grievances and promised dramatic change but conspicuously left out details about his economic plans. However, Ivanishvili’s initiatives as prime minister and his personal past offer some insight into his plans for the country’s economic future and its privatization program.

[more on themoscowtimes.com]

Many thanks to C.K. and A.W.  for help with the research and editing process.