"Turnaround: Third World Lessons for First World Growth"

Peter Blair Henry argues that the U.S. should look to China, Brazil, Mexico, and other developing countries to develop its own plan for prosperity.  Hosted by Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC.    


Peter Blair Henry
Peter Blair Henry is dean of the Stern School of Business at New York University.  He was previously a professor of international economics at Stanford University.


'Turnaround' is Peter Blair Henry's absorbing take on perhaps the most basic and important economic question there is: why are some countries rich and others poor? In providing his answer, he makes a counter-intuitive yet compelling point: the policies and 'discipline' adopted by successful industrializing (or 'third world') countries over the last 50 years are ones that the industrialized US and Western Europe need to learn from and replicate as part of their efforts to resuscitate long-run economic growth on this side of the world.

The story that frames the book is a contrast between Jamaica, Henry's home country, and the neighboring Barbados. Both countries were endowed with comparable economic institutions when the British left in the 1960's, but chose very different economic policy over the next few decades, Barbados' being more fiscally disciplined. Consider the results. In 1960, the per-capita income in Barbados was about 50% higher than that of Jamaica. By 2010, it was almost 200% higher, over $14,000 versus Jamaica's $5000.


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What is economic discipline? IMF, advanced countries can learn fr developing nations (big and small) at all corners. http://thebea.st/17IK85W 

In decades past, First World countries have lectured the rest of the world about how to stabilize and grow their economies. Today, in a startling turnaround, the developed world buckles under high debt and slow growth, while countries such as South Korea, India, Chile, Mexico, and even tiny Barbados provide vital lessons for recovery.