The 1 Percent’s Solution

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Source: nytimes.com, April 25, 2013

Economic debates rarely end with a T.K.O. But the great policy debate of recent years between Keynesians, who advocate sustaining and, indeed, increasing government spending in a depression, and austerians, who demand immediate spending cuts, comes close — at least in the world of ideas. At this point, the austerian position has imploded; not only have its predictions about the real world failed completely, but the academic research invoked to support that position has turned out to be riddled with errors, omissions and dubious statistics.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

________________________

 

 

Yet two big questions remain. First, how did austerity doctrine become so influential in the first place? Second, will policy change at all now that crucial austerian claims have become fodder for late-night comics?

      

On the first question: the dominance of austerians in influential circles should disturb anyone who likes to believe that policy is based on, or even strongly influenced by, actual evidence. After all, the two main studies providing the alleged intellectual justification for austerity — Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna on “expansionary austerity” and Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff on the dangerous debt “threshold” at 90 percent of G.D.P. — faced withering criticism almost as soon as they came out.

       

And the studies did not hold up under scrutiny. By late 2010, the International Monetary Fund had reworked Alesina-Ardagna with better data and reversed their findings, while many economists raised fundamental questions about Reinhart-Rogoff long before we knew about the famous Excel error. Meanwhile, real-world events — stagnation in Ireland, the original poster child for austerity, falling interest rates in the United States, which was supposed to be facing an imminent fiscal crisis — quickly made nonsense of austerian predictions.

       

Yet austerity maintained and even strengthened its grip on elite opinion. Why?

       

Part of the answer surely lies in the widespread desire to see economics as a morality play, to make it a tale of excess and its consequences. We lived beyond our means, the story goes, and now we’re paying the inevitable price. Economists can explain ad nauseam that this is wrong, that the reason we have mass unemployment isn’t that we spent too much in the past but that we’re spending too little now, and that this problem can and should be solved. No matter; many people have a visceral sense that we sinned and must seek redemption through suffering — and neither economic argument nor the observation that the people now suffering aren’t at all the same people who sinned during the bubble years makes much of a dent.

       

But it’s not just a matter of emotion versus logic. You can’t understand the influence of austerity doctrine without talking about class and inequality.

       

What, after all, do people want from economic policy? The answer, it turns out, is that it depends on which people you ask — a point documented in a recent research paper by the political scientists Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels and Jason Seawright. The paper compares the policy preferences of ordinary Americans with those of the very wealthy, and the results are eye-opening.

       

Thus, the average American is somewhat worried about budget deficits, which is no surprise given the constant barrage of deficit scare stories in the news media, but the wealthy, by a large majority, regard deficits as the most important problem we face. And how should the budget deficit be brought down? The wealthy favor cutting federal spending on health care and Social Security — that is, “entitlements” — while the public at large actually wants to see spending on those programs rise.

       

You get the idea: The austerity agenda looks a lot like a simple expression of upper-class preferences, wrapped in a facade of academic rigor. What the top 1 percent wants becomes what economic science says we must do.

       

Does a continuing depression actually serve the interests of the wealthy? That’s doubtful, since a booming economy is generally good for almost everyone. What is true, however, is that the years since we turned to austerity have been dismal for workers but not at all bad for the wealthy, who have benefited from surging profits and stock prices even as long-term unemployment festers. The 1 percent may not actually want a weak economy, but they’re doing well enough to indulge their prejudices.

       

And this makes one wonder how much difference the intellectual collapse of the austerian position will actually make. To the extent that we have policy of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent, won’t we just see new justifications for the same old policies ?

       

I hope not; I’d like to believe that ideas and evidence matter, at least a bit. Otherwise, what am I doing with my life? But I guess we’ll see just how much cynicism is justified.

The Excel Depression

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Source: nytimes.com, April 18, 2013

In this age of information, math errors can lead to disaster. NASA’s Mars Orbiter crashed because engineers forgot to convert to metric measurements; JPMorgan Chase’s “London Whale” venture went bad in part because modelers divided by a sum instead of an average. So, did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?

The story so far: At the beginning of 2010, two Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, circulated a paper, “Growth in a Time of Debt,” that purported to identify a critical “threshold,” a tipping point, for government indebtedness. Once debt exceeds 90 percent of gross domestic product, they claimed, economic growth drops off sharply.
       

Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff had credibility thanks to a widely admired earlier book on the history of financial crises, and their timing was impeccable. The paper came out just after Greece went into crisis and played right into the desire of many officials to “pivot” from stimulus to austerity. As a result, the paper instantly became famous; it was, and is, surely the most influential economic analysis of recent years.

       

In fact, Reinhart-Rogoff quickly achieved almost sacred status among self-proclaimed guardians of fiscal responsibility; their tipping-point claim was treated not as a disputed hypothesis but as unquestioned fact. For example, a Washington Post editorial earlier this year warned against any relaxation on the deficit front, because we are “dangerously near the 90 percent mark that economists regard as a threat to sustainable economic growth.” Notice the phrasing: “economists,” not “some economists,” let alone “some economists, vigorously disputed by other economists with equally good credentials,” which was the reality.

       

For the truth is that Reinhart-Rogoff faced substantial criticism from the start, and the controversy grew over time. As soon as the paper was released, many economists pointed out that a negative correlation between debt and economic performance need not mean that high debt causes low growth. It could just as easily be the other way around, with poor economic performance leading to high debt. Indeed, that’s obviously the case for Japan, which went deep into debt only after its growth collapsed in the early 1990s.

       

Over time, another problem emerged: Other researchers, using seemingly comparable data on debt and growth, couldn’t replicate the Reinhart-Rogoff results. They typically found some correlation between high debt and slow growth — but nothing that looked like a tipping point at 90 percent or, indeed, any particular level of debt.

       

Finally, Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff allowed researchers at the University of Massachusetts to look at their original spreadsheet — and the mystery of the irreproducible results was solved. First, they omitted some data; second, they used unusual and highly questionable statistical procedures; and finally, yes, they made an Excel coding error. Correct these oddities and errors, and you get what other researchers have found: some correlation between high debt and slow growth, with no indication of which is causing which, but no sign at all of that 90 percent “threshold.”

       

In response, Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff have acknowledged the coding error, defended their other decisions and claimed that they never asserted that debt necessarily causes slow growth. That’s a bit disingenuous because they repeatedly insinuated that proposition even if they avoided saying it outright. But, in any case, what really matters isn’t what they meant to say, it’s how their work was read: Austerity enthusiasts trumpeted that supposed 90 percent tipping point as a proven fact and a reason to slash government spending even in the face of mass unemployment.

       

So the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco needs to be seen in the broader context of austerity mania: the obviously intense desire of policy makers, politicians and pundits across the Western world to turn their backs on the unemployed and instead use the economic crisis as an excuse to slash social programs.

       

What the Reinhart-Rogoff affair shows is the extent to which austerity has been sold on false pretenses. For three years, the turn to austerity has been presented not as a choice but as a necessity. Economic research, austerity advocates insisted, showed that terrible things happen once debt exceeds 90 percent of G.D.P. But “economic research” showed no such thing; a couple of economists made that assertion, while many others disagreed. Policy makers abandoned the unemployed and turned to austerity because they wanted to, not because they had to.

       

So will toppling Reinhart-Rogoff from its pedestal change anything? I’d like to think so. But I predict that the usual suspects will just find another dubious piece of economic analysis to canonize, and the depression will go on and on.

________________________

NDCDP-Économie générale.-

Liens vers les articles de Reinhart et Rogoff et de Herndon, Ash et Pollin:

1. Reinhart-Rogoff:"Growth in a time of debt", NBER Working Paper, 26 pages, January 2010.[The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBER.] 
2. Herdon-Ash-Pollin: "Does High Public Debt Consistenly Stifle Economic Growth ? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff" , University of Massachusetts Amherst, 26 pages, April 2013.
3. Reinhart-Rogoff Initial Response, by Robin Harding, Financial Time, April 16, 2013
    

Mesure de la croissance économique d'un pays

Le concept de croissance économique est l'un des plus importants de la théorie économique moderne. Il s'agit d'un concept global qui se mesure essentiellement à partir des grands agrégats de la comptabilité nationale.

La mesure de la croissance économique soit à partir du produit national brut (PIB), soit à partir du revenu national. Pour ce faire, on calcule le taux de variation de l'agrégat à chaque période par rapport à la période précédente.

On distingue la croissance en valeur de la croissance en volume.
La croissance en valeur est évaluée à prix courants, tandis que la croissance en volume est mesurée à prix constants.

Exprimons, pour les fins du raisonnement, la valeur du PIB d'un pays au cours d'une année donnée par l'équation suivante:

PIB = P x Q .......... (1)

Dans cette équation:

• Q représente la quantité de biens produits au cours de l'année, hormis ceux de consommation intermédiaire;
• P est le prix moyen de ces biens ou le niveau général des prix.

Supposons que le PIB s'accroît de delta_PIB par rapport à l'année précédente par suite d'une variation des prix, delta_P, et, d'un accroissement de la quantité de biens, delta_Q.

En se basant sur la notion de différentielle totale d'une fonction de deux variables, on peut écrire l'approximation suivante entre l'accroissement du PIB, la variation de P et l'accroissement de Q:

delta_PIB = P x (delta_Q) + Q x (delta_P) .......... (2)

Dans l'équation (2):

• delta_PIB est la croissance en valeur ou à prix courants;
• P x delta_Q est la croissance en volume ou à prix constants. Elle est due à l'accroissement de la quantité de biens produits seulement;
• Q x delta_P est la croissance nominale due à la variation des prix seulement.

En divisant l'équation (2) par l'équation (1), membre à membre, on obtient, après simplification:

(delta_PIB) / PIB = (delta_Q)/ Q + (delta_P) / P .......... (3)

L'équation (3) montre que le taux de croissance en valeur, (delta_PIB)/PIB est égale à la somme du taux de croissance en volume, (delta_Q)/Q et du taux de variation du niveau général des prix, (delta_P)/P.

Les analyses de croissance concernent surtout le taux de croissance en volume, (delta_Q)/Q.

Si la variation de prix est nulle, le taux de croissance en valeur est égal au taux de croissance en volume.

Si la croissance en volume est nulle, le taux de croissance en valeur est égal au taux de variation du niveau général des prix.

En général, (delta_P)/P n'est pas nul. Alors, pour avoir le taux de croissance en volume, on l'isole à partir de l'équation (3):

(delta_Q)/Q = (delta_PIB) / PIB - (delta_P) / P .......... (4)

Le premier terme du second membre de (4), c'est-à-dire, le taux de croissance en valeur, est tiré directement des statistiques de la comptabilité nationale établies à prix courants. Le second terme du second membre de (4) est le taux de variation d'un indice du niveau général des prix.

Remarque.-

L'expression fournie dans l'équation (1) est le PIB nominal pour une période donnée. Pour avoir le PIB réel, on prend l'habitude de diviser le PIB nominal par le niveau des prix:

PIB réel = PIB nominal / niveau des prix .......... (5)

Mais, cette façon de procéder peut poser un problème quand les prix relatifs changent fortement. Le Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) américain, pour corriger un peu ce problème, fournit une mesure appelée: "PIB réel avec chaînage des pondérations". Par exemple, si l'on utilise les prix de 1996 comme base et ainsi, le PIB sera mesuré en dollars 1996 chaînés. Si par contre on utilise les prix de 2000 comme base, alors le PIB sera mesuré en dollars 2000 chaînés.

________________

Dans la préparation de cet article nous avons consulté, entre autres documents:

1. Stiglitz, J. E. et Walsh, C. E. (2004) "Principes d'économie moderne", 2e édition, De Boeck et Larcier, 982 pages.
2. Poulon, F. (2008) "Économie générale", 6e édition, Dunod, 336 pages.
3. BEA: http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/Index.asp
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
5. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Produit_int%C3%A9rieur_brut

Économie haïtienne: Qu'est-ce qui empêche sa croissance ou son développement ?

Mon ami et confrère Lemane Vaillant m'a demandé mon opinion sur le dernier article de Marc Bazin, publié dans le journal Le Nouvelliste du 19 juin 2009 et posté par la suite sur ce blog.

J'ai profité de l'occasion pour jeter aussi un regard sur un travail de Mats Lundahl datant de 2001.

Voici quelques larges extraits de ma lettre à Lemane.

***

Quand on considère l’analyse de Marc Bazin (19 juin 2009) et celle de Mats Lundahl (2001), on est frappé par l'optimisme du premier et le pessimisme du second, bien que les approches des deux experts soient tout à fait réalistes et qu'ils aient tous les deux raisons, chacun de leur point de vue.

Entre les deux spécialistes, se situe, selon moi, l'expert Paul Collier qui dit en gros ceci: essayons d’entreprendre quelques actions ponctuelles dans l’économie haïtienne pour voir ce que cela peut donner, pour voir si l’on peut faire démarrer la machine en panne en la poussant et en jouant avec la pédale d’embrayage (clutch) ; pour voir si l’on peut faire marcher la machine sur la voie de service d’abord, pour ensuite, si possible, la faire entrer sur l’autoroute.

Haïti : un cas perdu

Marc Bazin commence par nous faire part des conclusions pessimistes d’un certain nombre d’économistes : Haïti est un cas perdu.

Pour eux, Haïti ne pourrait atteindre un rythme de croissance élevée et soutenue qu’à très long terme.

Parce qu’Haïti est dotée d’une main-d’œuvre non qualifiée, que ses infrastructures sont insuffisantes et qu'y règne l’instabilité politique, ces experts pensent que ces carences-ci sont de nature à handicaper les trois secteurs susceptibles de répondre positivement à une stratégie de croissance: agriculture, tourisme et industrie d’assemblage.

Marc Bazin mentionne aussi un autre groupe d’économistes pour qui, ce n’est pas le principe ni le calendrier de la croissance qui est le problème en Haïti, mais plutôt son niveau qui devrait être très élevé, donc impossible dans les conditions actuelles. Parmi eux, Bazin cite l’économiste de renom, Mats Lundahl, qui ne croit pas possible une croissance à court terme de l’économie haïtienne.


Bazin optimiste, mais réaliste

Devant ces positions pessimistes, Marc Bazin se montre plutôt optimiste, mais réaliste. Il rappelle que l’économie haïtienne avait enregistré une croissance de 5% par an entre 1975 et 1980. C’était, mentionne-t-il, sous l’effet combiné de l’augmentation du prix du café sur le marché mondial, l’émergence de l’industrie d’assemblage, l’investissement dans des projets de routes, la relance de la consommation.

Son long texte qui n’est que le premier d’une série de trois articles est le fruit de sa longue pratique de l’économie haïtienne et de sa grande familiarité avec les données et l’évolution des idées dans le domaine du développement qu’il a observées durant les trente dernières années.

Il souligne que ce travail présente un cadre où il utilise et adapte les expériences de croissance qui ont réussi ailleurs. Il espère alors que ce travail pourra être utile aux dirigeants qui veulent agir dans le sens du bien du pays.


Un pays qui soutient une croissance constante de 7% par année verra son économie doubler de volume tous les dix ans environ.


C’est ce que soutient avec raison Marc Bazin. Son optimisme selon moi prend racine principalement sur cette affirmation indubitable.

Je vais expliquer en détail cette affirmation à tout lecteur sceptique.


Voici le calcul que fait Marc Bazin. Soit PIB(0) le Produit intérieur brut au temps t = 0. Si le taux de croissance de l’économie (donc du PIB) était constant et égal à TC_pib = 7% par an, pendant, disons, 25 ans, et si le niveau des prix restait inchangé pendant cette période, le PIB pour une année n quelconque entre 0 et 25 ans serait :

PIB(n) = PIB(0) x (1+TC_pib)^n = PIB(0) x(1+ 0,07)^n ,

le symbole "^" signifiant "exposant".

Ainsi :

PIB(0) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^0 = 1,00 x PIB(0)
PIB(1) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^1 = 1,07 x PIB(0)
PIB(2) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^2 = 1,145 x PIB(0)
PIB(3) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^3 = 1,225 x PIB(0)
PIB(4) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^4 = 1,311 x PIB(0)

PIB(5) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^5 = 1,403 x PIB(0)
PIB(6) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^6 = 1,501 x PIB(0)
PIB(7) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^7 = 1,606 x PIB(0)
PIB(8) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^8 = 1,718 x PIB(0)
PIB(9) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^9 = 1,838 x PIB(0)
PIB(10) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^10 = 1,967 x PIB(0)

PIB(11) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^11 = 2,105 x PIB(0)

PIB(15) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^15 = 2,759 x PIB(0)

PIB(20) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^20 = 3,870 x PIB(0)
PIB(23) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^23 = 4,741 x PIB(0)


PIB(25) = PIB(0) x (1,07)^25 = 5,427 x PIB(0)

On voit que, dans ces conditions, au bout de 6 ans le PIB augmenterait de 50%, qu’au bout de 10 ans sa valeur doublerait, qu’au bout de 20 ans sa valeur quadruplerait quasiment, qu’au bout de 25 ans sa valeur serait égale à plus de 5,4 fois sa valeur initiale.

Voici donc, selon moi, la logique qui soutend l’optimisme de Marc Bazin.


Quelques remarques que suscite le texte de Marc Bazin

Selon les chiffres ci-dessus, et, sous les hypothèses qui y sont associées, donc, en renversant la dictature en 1986, si les haïtiens avaient décidé de développer sérieusement leur pays, l’économie d’Haïti, en 2009, 23 ans plus tard, aurait été, en volume, 4,74 fois celle de 1986, avec un taux de croissance constant égal à 7% par année !


Avec un taux de croissance de 7% de l’économie, il reste que le taux d’accroissement de la population maintenant égal à 2,2% par an ne devrait pas augmenter. On devrait plutôt prendre des mesures pour réduire le taux de croissance nette de la population. La situation économique du pays serait en meilleure position si c’était le taux de croissance du PIB par tête d’habitant qui était égal à 7% par année.

Bazin dans son texte semble répondre aux économistes pessimistes tels que Mats Lundahl. Ce dernier a beaucoup écrit sur Haïti, son histoire et son économie, au cours des trente dernières années.


La thèse de Mats Lundahl

Voici un texte de Lundahl (Lundahl (2001)) qu’il est intéressant de lire et de soupeser pour ensuite le confronter avec les propositions de Bazin et de Collier et de toutes autres propositions pour relancer la croissance en Haïti. Nous laissons aux lecteurs le soin de faire cette confrontation après lecture des documents.


Lundahl déclare qu’il est impossible de comprendre Haïti aujourd’hui sans retourner au 19e siècle pour deux raisons. Écoutons-le:

« … The first is that during the 19th century the system of property rights that still prevails was created and this in turn influenced the export pattern for a long time to come. The second is that during the 19th the Haitian political tradition was shaped. Both these events date from the crucial year 1809 –the year of the first “land reform” of Latin America - and cannot be separated from one another. The same forces that put Haiti on the road of a peasant society created a predatory state. These two interacting and opposing forces are in the main those responsible for the state of utter underdevelopment that characterizes Haiti almost two centuries later. »

« … The rest of the 19th century was to witness a rapid lapse of agriculture into peasant farming. The agricultural “frontier” that was created by the sudden loss of population during the wars of liberation was closed at some point during the last quarter of the 19th century, and from then on Haiti’s agricultural history was reduced to a Malthusian race between population and food production, with disastrous long-run consequences for environment and living standards. »


Mats Lundahl continue en analysant en long et en large chacun des problèmes de l’économie politique haïtienne listés ci-dessous:

« The Malthusian erosion process. »
« The continued degeneration of politics, notably the gap that has opened between the state and the nation. »
« The failure to develop a growth-generating export basis, both in agriculture and in manufacturing. »
« The consequences of politics and population growth for education. »
« The absence of social capital. »
« The subservience of economic policy to selfish political goals. »

« Altogether, these mechanisms have contributed to locking Haiti into a downward cumulative process of economic deterioration and political deadlock that has created incomes for the few at the expense of the many that constitute the Haitian nation and without whom the existence of the few would not have been possible.»

Puis, Mats Lundahl développe chacun des points énumérés ci-dessus. Par exemple, selon lui, le premier point est le plus important.

« The most fundamental of the mechanisms that have contributed to making Haiti the poorest country in the western hemisphere is the interplay between the growth of the population and the destruction of the arable soil… The overall rate of population growth is not exceedingly high in Haiti, but given the rugged topography of the terrain the figure is high enough to have disastrous consequences in terms of loss of soil fertility. »

« The process works via the composition of agricultural production. In Haiti a distinction may be made between export crops and food crops … The rural sector therefore very much resembles the two-by-two textbook economy producing two commodities using two factors of production. The main distinction between the two groups is that export crops tend to be land-intensive while food crops are labor-intensive. »

Et Lundahl continue ainsi:

« This description of the rural economy in turn makes possible the application of one of the standard theorems of international trade: the Rybczynski (1955) theorem. This theorem, which is one of the most useful in economics, states that if the two production functions are linearly homogeneous (no economies of scale exist) and the endowment of one of the two factors increases, at constant relative commodity prices, the output of the commodity using the growing factor intensively will increase in absolute terms while the output of the other commodity will fall, relatively and absolutely. This has to do with the fact that if relative commodity prices are to remain constant so must relative factor prices and the factor intensities employed in each sector. Thus, when the labor force increases in rural Haiti, this increase must be absorbed by food cultivation; however, if the land-labor ratio is not to be altered, enough land must be taken out of export production, together with some labor, so as to ensure that techniques remain the same in both lines of production. »

« The theorem thus predicts that food crops will be substituted for export crops over time. »

« This is precisely what took place in Haiti at least during the second half of the twentieth century, and presumably the same tendency was at work during the first fifty years as well … »

« … This sequence is not an innocent one in the Haitian context. The problem is that of topography. The most important substitution is the one of food crops for coffee. This takes place on hill and mountain sides which are often very steep. The coffee plant is a tree with roots and a canopy which contributes to binding the soil and protecting it from the direct impact of rain and wind. It is furthermore perennial. Food crops do not share these characteristics … »

« … The result is that when the tropical downpours set in, the soil is easily washed off the steep mountain sides and into valleys and streams, i.e. substitution of food crops for export crops increases the likelihood of soil erosion. What is more, once this process has been set in motion it feeds itself without any further need for population growth to stimulate it. The destruction of the soil simply amounts to running the Rybczynski theorem in reverse . The land shrinks and the output of the good using land intensively, i.e. export crops, must then contract while that of food crops increases, since food production has to absorb the labor that is taken out of export production, together with the some land. For each round in the process more land is destroyed, the rural economy moves further and further into food production, and per capita income falls in the countryside. At the same time, the population continues to grow which means that the Rybczynski process receives further stimulus from this side as well. The process thus tends to accelerate and become cumulative. »

« The process of soil erosion receives a stimulus also from tree felling for the purpose of getting firewood or making charcoal … and for the construction of houses. Together, the two mechanisms have contributed to the gradual destruction of the forest cover of the country, to the conversion of soils clad with perennial vegetation into barren land which cannot be used for anything. Little by little Haiti is being turned into a naked rock with no capacity to nourish the population and give it an income. »

« Shaky as they may be, the statistics are revealing. In 1938 there were an estimated 540 000 ha of “good arable soil” in Haiti. In 1954 this figure had shrunk to 370 000 and in 1970 it was down to 225 750 ha. The figure reported for 1985 was 205 000 ha, and there are no indications that the trend has been reversed thereafter. On the contrary, in the mid-1980s, as much as 6 000 - 10 000 ha of arable land were lost each year, and in the early 1990s the figure was 6 000 – 15 000 ha. Haitian agriculture continues to be what Hilaire(1995) has called a mining agriculture. »

« … it does not pay a peasant to undertake erosion control, for example in the form of terracing, unless his neighbors – notably those above him – do the same. If not, he simply incurs costs without ever seeing any benefits. The terraces will be washed away. The Haitian peasants are in the classic Prisoners’ Dilemma situation, where they could be better off if they cooperated but where there are no incentives to do so. »


Et Lundahl continue ainsi à nous en mettre plein la figure…item après item.

Après ‘Man versus Nature : The Process of Soil Destruction’, dont nous venons de parler un peu, il passe ensuite à ‘Food versus Export Crops : The Failure to Develop Exports’, puis à ‘Politics versus Economics : Economic Policy Problems’, puis à ‘Government versus Citizens : The Continued Degeneration of Politics’, ensuite à ‘Man versus Man : The Lack of social Capital’, puis à ‘Rulers versus Ruled : Education in Haiti’, pour arriver enfin aux ‘Conclusions’.


Quelques extraits des conclusions en sept points de Lundahl

1. « The relative position of Haiti in the Caribbean context does not come as any surprise. The country scores badly on all the dimensions that we have examined in the present essay. At the bottom of Haitian underdevelopment is a purely economic mechanism: the tendency for population growth to reduce per capita income via the process of soil erosion: a process which once it has been put in motion become self-sustained … This mechanism was operating during the entire twentieth century. »

2. « The soil destruction process is intimately related to the tendency created by population growth for labor-intensive food crops to be substituted for land-intensive export crops. Haitian agriculture has displayed a kind of an anti-export bias sui generis. Over time it has become more and more difficult to export the traditional crops, and this tendency has been reinforced by political interventions of the most dubious kind. The fact that the export crops have been relatively speaking land-intensive, has meant that as erosion has taken its toll whatever comparative advantage that Haiti may once have had in the production of these crops has been lost, and we have argued that after some point in time the country may even have been exporting products in which, in fact, it has had comparative disadvantage. Another indication of this is the rise of the small assembly manufacturing producers, who, however, also were badly hurt by the unfortunate state of Haitian politics. In spite of this, today Haiti is basically an exporter of manufactures, not agricultural products, and this fact is completely central to all future discussions of development strategies. »

3. « Turning the attention to economic policy we find that little has been done to facilitate development in Haiti. »

4. « Behind the failure of economic policy lies the degeneration of the Haitian state … A nation of free peasants with access to free land could be made to yield a surplus to the government only through taxation. »

5. « A corollary of the degeneration of the state is to be found in the absence of social capital in Haiti ... The Haitians still mistrust the authorities and the politicians … The unfortunate heritage has in turn created a society that is very politicized on virtually all levels, where contending forces are facing each other, trying to wipe each other out and where constructive, cooperative, long-run solutions in the interest of the common good are conspicuous by their absence. »

6. « Another corollary of the sad state of politics has been then failure to develop the education system … Still, …, the kind of technical skills needed if Haiti is to raise its per capita income level are lacking. »

7. « This makes industrial development difficult, but demand factors may preclude industrialization at higher skill levels even if the decision is taken to do something about the education system … Its was never easy to be Haitian. »


Personne ne peut rester insensible à de tels arguments. D’où la réaction et les propositions justifiées de Bazin. Il nous faut faire ou faire faire quelque chose pour Haïti.

Je suggérerais que le travail de Lundahl soit traduit en créole et en français, puis distribué en Haïti et dans la diaspora, que le travail de Bazin soit traduit en créole, puis distribué en Haïti et dans la diaspora.

Dr. Pierre Montès

24 juin 2009

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(1) Bazin, Marc, “Haïti: IV. Vers une économie efficace et solidaire”

http://jfjpm-economie.blogspot.com/2009/06/haiti-iv-vers-une-economie-efficace-et.html

(2) Lundahl, Mats (2001), “Poorest in the Caribbean: Haiti in the twentieth century”, Integration & Trade Journal N° 15 (September-December, 2001).

En anglais :

http://www.iadb.org/intal/aplicaciones/uploads/publicaciones/i_INTAL_IYT_15_2001_Lundahl.Pdf Ou

En espagnol :

http://www.iadb.org/intal/aplicaciones/uploads/publicaciones/e_INTAL_IYC_15_2001_Lundahl.pdf

(3) Rybczynski, T.M. (1955), “Factor endowment and relative commodity prices”, Economica, N.S., Vol. 22. p. 336-341.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9or%C3%A8me_de_Rybczynski


(4) Hilaire, Sébastien (1995), “Le prix d’une agriculture minière”, Imprimerie Le Natal, Port-au-Prince.

(5) L'échec des politiques économiques d'Haïti entre 1986 et 2004 est analysé et expliqué par Lundahl et Wyzan (2005). On peut lire de larges extraits sur le Web en cliquant sur le lien ci-après:

http://jfjpm-economie.blogspot.com/2009/06/political-economy-of-reform-failure.html

(6) À lire aussi la belle et «brève missive» de Leslie F. Manigat que j'ai eu le plaisir de lire aujourd'hui 28 juin 2009:

http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=71456

Je dois avouer ici qu'après avoir lu le dernier texte de Marc Bazin, j'ai pensé au RDNP. Je me suis dit: quelle belle équipe aurait formée le Midh de Marc Bazin et le RDNP de Mirlande Manigat (qui a dit rester fidèle aux idées de son ancien chef Leslie Manigat). La lecture de la lettre de LFM me permet de croire que la formation d'une telle équipe Midh-RDNP est peut-être possible pour le bien d'Haïti, oui, mais pour une première victoire aux urnes dès les prochaines élections présidentielles et législatives en fin 2010 ou au début de 2011.