Two years ago in a Cato study I documented El Salvador’s remarkable liberalization process and the significant progress in economic and social indicators that resulted from those free market reforms. I also warned then about how those achievements were threatened by the likely victory of the former Marxist guerrilla group, FMLN, in the presidential election of 2009.

Even though Mauricio Funes, the then FMLN candidate now turned president, has proven to be a relatively moderate figure when compared to his radical left-wing party, El Salvador is reversing many of the gains of the past decade. Mary O’Grady’s column in the Wall Street Journal today, which describes how “the wheels came off” of the “once thriving Salvadoran economy,” is a reminder to all countries not to take progress for granted.

El Salvador’s Unfortunate Lesson is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This, it seems to me, is a sign of a brittle, weak government that is fighting time and surviving exclusively on its nationalist credential:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran will not allow its universities to begin teaching certain disciplines it deems too “Western,” and existing courses will be revised, a senior Education Ministry was quoted as saying Sunday.

“Expansion of 12 disciplines in the social sciences like law, women’s studies, human rights, management, sociology, philosophy….psychology and political sciences will be reviewed,” Abolfazl Hassani was quoted as saying in the Arman newspaper.

“These sciences’ contents are based on Western culture. The review will be the intention of making them compatible with Islamic teachings.”

Hassani said Iranian universities will not be allowed to open new departments in these disciplines and the curricula for existing departments would be revised.

Link via John Sides.

Heightening the Contradictions in Iran is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Following the announcement of massive layoffs in the public sector, the Cuban government published today new guidelines that will allow private employment in 178 economic activities. Among the newly authorized private occupations are masseurs, clowns, shoemakers, locksmiths, and gardeners.

However, these new entrepreneurs will face a few hurdles before enjoying the benefits of their own work. Not only must they get a government license in order to operate (according to official sources the number of permits will be capped at 250,000), but they will also have to pay high taxes. A leaked document from the Communist Party says that small businesses will pay between 10 to 40 percent of their gross income in taxes. On top of that, they will have to contribute 25 percent of their incomes to social security.

Don’t expect a thriving private sector in Cuba any time soon.

Cuban Government Will Choke the Nascent Private Sector is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Professor William Easterly, the economic development expert from New York University, has written an excellent comment for the Financial Times online. He writes, “The Millennium Development Goals [summit that wraps up in NY today] tragically misused the world’s goodwill to support failed official aid approaches to global poverty and gave virtually no support to proven approaches. … But current experience and history both speak loudly that the only real engine of growth out of poverty is private business, and there is no evidence that aid fuels such growth.”

At the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, we have continuously emphasized the power of trade to help the poor escape poverty. Unfortunately, politicians in rich countries find it easier to waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars in the form of foreign aid than to take on special interests that thrive on trade protectionism; hence European and American agricultural tariffs and subsidies.

However, the impact of rich countries’ protectionism should not be exaggerated. African countries are typically more protectionist than rich countries. In fact, they are more protectionist against one another than against rich countries. The sad truth is that poor countries are perfectly able to shoot themselves in the foot by following growth-killing economic policies – irrespective of what the rich countries do.

Foreign aid, incidentally, has been ineffective at promoting liberalization.

Trade Can Help the Poor Escape Poverty is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Here’s a story for the better-late-than-never file. Former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro confessed that communism doesn’t work and that his nation’s economic system should not be emulated.

Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba’s communist economic model doesn’t work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago. The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel’s brother Raul, the country’s president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba’s 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows. Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba’s economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore” Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

Too bad Castro didn’t have this epiphany 50 years ago. The Cuban people languish in abject poverty as a result of Castro’s oppressive policies. Food is harshly rationed and other basic amenities are largely unavailable (except, of course, to the party elite). This chart, comparing inflation-adjusted per-capita GDP in Chile and Cuba, is a good illustration of the human cost of excessive government. Living standards in Cuba have languished. In Chile, by contrast, the embrace of market-friendly policies has resulted in a huge increase in prosperity. Chileans were twice as rich as Cubans when Castro seized control of the island. After 50 years of communism in Cuba and 30 years of liberalization in Chile, the gap is now much larger.

Now He Tells Us… is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

China is now officially the world’s second largest economy, overtaking Japan in the quarter that ended in June and likely for all of 2010. While the story has been widely reported (more than 1,500 articles on Google News this morning), it is less significant than it first appears.

The news will probably ruffle the feathers of the China hawks, who will see in it a threat to America’s influence in the world, but China’s rise to no. 2 is really another sign of the world returning to normal.

China is home, after all, to one-fifth of mankind. Its population of 1,330 million is more than 10 times that of Japan (127 million) and more than four times that of the United States (310 million), according to the CIA Factbook. So even though China’s gross domestic product is now larger than Japan’s, its GDP per capita is still only one tenth that of its east Asian neighbor.

If China sticks to its path of market liberalization, it’s close to inevitable that its GDP economy will eventually surpass that of the United States in overall size. That news event is likely to grab headlines in 15 to 20 years based on current rates of growth. Even then, China’s per capita GDP will only be a quarter of what we enjoy in the United States.

China’s rank as no. 1 will be nothing new in history. According to the late British economic historian Angus Maddison, China’s economy had been the largest in the world for most of the past two millennia. In his magisterial 2001 book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, Maddison estimated that as recently as 1820 China’s GDP was 30 percent larger than the economies of Western Europe and the United States combined (p. 117).

After centuries of war, civil strife, and self-imposed isolation, China is only now rightfully reclaiming its rank as one of the world’s largest economies. That development is nothing to be feared.

China Now World’s 2nd Largest Economy: Ho Hum is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In a Cato paper released earlier this month, I argued that the glacial pace of America’s economic recovery and its growing public debt juxtaposed against China’s almost uninterrupted double-digit annual economic growth and its role as Congress’s sugar daddy have bred insecurity among U.S. opinion leaders, many of whom now advocate a more strident approach to China, or emulation of its top-down approach.

I cite, among others, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, who is enamored of autocracy’s capacity to facilitate China’s singularity of purpose to dominate the industries of the future:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power, and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Friedman’s theme—but less googoo eyed and more all-hands-on-deck!—is echoed in an op-ed by China-expert James McGregor, which ran in yesterday’s Washington Post.  McGregor conveys what he describes as an emerging sentiment within the U.S. business community in China.  That is: the Chinese government is hell bent on creating national economic champions; is using its increasing leverage (as global financier and fastest-growing market) to impose its own interpretations of the global rules of economic engagement in support of its comprehensive industrial policy, and, ultimately; the United States must wake up and rise to the challenge by crafting some top-down industrial policy of its own.

I don’t dispute some of McGregor’s premises.  China’s long process of market liberalization has slowed down, halted, and even reversed in some areas.  Policies are proliferating that favor local companies (particularly state-owned enterprises), hamper the operations of foreign-owned firms, and impede market access for imports.  Indeed, many of these policies are likely the product of industrial planning. 

But McGregor’s conclusion is extreme:

The time has come for a White House-led, public-private, comprehensive examination of American competitiveness against a clear-eyed view of China’s very smart and comprehensive industrial development policies and plans…What technology do we protect? What do we share? What are our commercial strategic imperatives as a nation? How do we retool the U.S. government’s inadequate and outdated trade bureaucracy to provide thoughtful strategic focus and interagency coordination? How do we overcome the fundamental disconnect between our system of scattered bureaucratic responsibilities and almost no national economic planning vs. China’s top-down, disciplined and aggressive national economic development planning machine?

Central planning may be more en vogue in Washington than usual nowadays, but to even come close to reaching his conclusion requires disregarding many facts, which is how McGregor gets there sans tongue in cheek.

First, in an effort to preempt any suggestion that China’s protectionism is nothing exceptional and can be remedied through the World Trade Organization and other channels, McGregor offers this blanket statement: “Chinese policymakers are masters of creative initiatives that slide through the loopholes of WTO and other international trade rules.”  I realize that op-ed writing forces one to economize on words, but that statement, which serves as McGregor’s springboard to socialism, cannot suffice for an analysis of the facts.  One of those facts is that the United States has been successful in compelling changes in China’s protectionist practices in all of the formal WTO disputes it has lodged that have been resolved thus far (6 of 8 formal cases have been resolved).  If China violates the agreed rules of trade, and its actions impair benefits or impose costs on U.S. interests that are too large to ignore, pursuing a WTO case is a legitimate and proven channel of resolution. Chinese protectionism can be addressed without the radical changes McGregor counsels. 

But I think McGregor—sharing the tactics of other in the media and politics—exploits public angst over a rising China to promote his idea as the obvious and only solution to what he sells as a rapidly-metastasizing problem.  McGregor argues that China is aiming to create national champions through subsidies and other preferential policies, while charging foreign companies admission to its market in the form of technology transfer, joint-venturing requirements, and local content rules.  McGregor claims, that this appropriation of foreign technology will be used to “create Chinese ‘indigenous innovations’ that will come back at us globally.”  Ultimately, McGregor fears that “American technology companies could be coerced to plant the seeds of their destruction in the fertile China market.”

It is telling that McGregor doesn’t consider U.S. government expropriation of those companies’ technology assets as planting the seeds of their own destruction.  Indeed, it is nothing short of expropriation when technology that is owned by individual companies in the private sector, making unique decisions to improve their own bottom-lines on behalf of their own shareholders is suddenly subject to the questions McGregor wants answered: What technology do we protect? What do we share? What are our commercial strategic imperatives as a nation?  Those questions, let alone the answers, imply that the U.S. government should have at least de facto ownership and control over these privately-held technology assets.

What is wrong with allowing each of these companies to decide for themselves whether they want to license or transfer some of their technology to Chinese companies, as the price of doing business in China?  Some will, some won’t, but the presupposition that those who do are selling the golden goose is not based on fact.  Let companies decide for themselves how to use their resources, and don’t treat industry as a monolith, as in “What are our commercial strategic imperatives as a nation?” 

Had we tried to answer and implement the answer to that question in the face the Japanese “threat” two decade ago, we’d be bereft of some of the most ingenious technological breakthroughs and the hundreds of industries and thousands of products that “our system of almost no national economic planning” has yielded.

When we peel away the chicken-little rhetoric, when we dispense with neo-Rahm Emanualism (“Never manufacture a good crisis and then let it go to waste”), when cooler heads and analytical minds prevail, the economic question boils down to this: What has been more successful at creating growth, central planning or decentralized dynamism?  For both China and the United States, it has been the latter. 

My bet is that China’s re-embrace of greater central planning will be brief, as it wastes resources, yields few -if any- national champions, and limits innovation.  For similar reasons, U.S. opinion leaders will eschew central planning, as well.

Beware of Americans Proselytizing the Chinese Economic Model is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Alex Nowrasteh and Ryan Young of the Competitive Enterprise Institute make the case for immigration reform in an especially appealing way in a fresh op-ed this week in the Detroit News.

In a commentary article titled, “Fix immigration rules to crush black market,” they dissect a well-meaning but flawed Obama administration effort to fix the dysfunctional H-2A visa program for temporary farm workers. Instead of fine tuning an unworkable law, Nowrasteh and Young advocate liberalization:

That means making H-2A visas inexpensive, easy to obtain, and keeping the related paperwork and regulations to a minimum. That means no minimum wage hike. No costly background check requirements. People rarely break laws that are reasonable and easy to obey.

When legal channels cost too much in time and money, people will turn to illegal channels every time. That’s how the world works. Getting rid of immigration’s black market begins with admitting that fact.

Hear, hear.

Ending the Black Market in Low-skilled Labor is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

This has not been a good week for the national Democratic Party. Along with losing the Massachusetts Senate seat, the party took another step toward making hostility to trade liberalization a plank of party orthodoxy.

As my Cato colleague Sallie James flagged earlier today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a press release yesterday criticizing a Republican candidate in upstate New York for contributing to the Cato Institute. And, of course, everyone knows that Cato is “a right wing extremist group that has long been a vocal advocate for extremist, unfair trade policies that would allow companies to ship American jobs overseas.”

Among our sins, in the eyes of the DCCC, is that Cato research has supported tariff-reducing trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our work has also advocated unilateral trade liberalization—getting rid of self-damaging U.S. trade barriers regardless of what other countries do—which violates the conventional Washington wisdom that we can’t lower our own barriers without demanding “reciprocity” and “a level playing field” from other nations

There is nothing extreme about our work on trade. It fits comfortably within mainstream economics expounded not only by Adam Smith and Milton Freidman but by such liberals as Paul Samuelson and Larry Summers.

In fact, for decades, the Democratic Party embraced lower barriers to trade:

• In the 1930s and ’40s, President Franklin Roosevelt and his Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning Secretary of State Cordell Hull lead the United States away from the disastrous protectionism of President Hoover and a Republican Congress.
• Democratic Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter all supported successful agreements in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to reduce trade barriers at home and abroad.
• Bill Clinton, the only Democrat to be re-elected president since FDR, persuaded a Democratic Congress to enact NAFTA in 1993 and the Uruguay Round Agreements Act in 1994, which created the World Trade Organization. Clinton also championed permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000, which ushered that nation into the WTO.
• In the previous Congress, scores of House Democrats co-sponsored “The Affordable Footwear Act,” which would have unilaterally lowered tariffs on imported shoes popular with low-income Americans. Liberal Democrat Earl Blumenauer of Oregon visited the Cato Institute in July 2008 to speak in favor of the bill. (Will he be the next target of a DCCC press release for cavorting with “extremists”?) In the current Congress, a similar bill in the Senate is currently co-sponsored by such prominent Democrats as Dick Durban (Ill.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), and Mary Landrieu (La.).

To learn more about why Democrats (and Republicans) should support free trade, I highly recommend two books: Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization, by yours truly; and Freedom From Want: Liberalism and the Global Economy, by Edward Gresser, a trade expert with the Democratic Leadership Council.

Was Bill Clinton Also an “Extremist” on Trade? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The former Soviet Republic of Georgia is a late economic reformer, having started such liberalization after the Rose Revolution in 2004. But it is one of the most successful post-Soviet reformers, and it may be the country that has implemented the largest range of serious market reforms in the shortest period of time. Its growth rate from 2004 through 2008 averaged 7.6 percent per year (which includes the comparatively low 2.1 percent rate of 2008 that resulted from the global financial crisis and the war with Russia).

Last month, the government submitted a draft act to Parliament that calls for amending the country’s constitution so that it would safeguard various elements of economic freedom. The amendments would put caps on public debt, spending and deficits; and ban any kind of price controls, state ownership of banks and financial institutions and restrictions on currency convertibility, and any kind of control over the movement of capital. New taxes or increases in tax rates would require approval through a national referendum.

With the possible partial exception of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, I’m not aware of any other constitution that explicitly enshrines economic freedom. I’m told by Georgian colleagues that prospects for passage of the law looks good, with the constitution being amended as early as next month.

A Georgian Constitution of Economic Liberty is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

CBS News has a good report out on recent developments in drug policy, including extensive coverage of the Cato report, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal. Here’s an excerpt:

Portugal’s case is important, Greenwald says, because it provides hard evidence that removes the debate from the realm of speculation.

“If you’re the first state to do it, there’s really no way you can point to evidence of what will or will not happen. … It’s just theory and it’s very abstract,” he said. “The more examples that arise and the more that you can prove that the sky doesn’t fall in,” he said, the more politically feasible drug liberalization will become in the U.S.

So far, Portugal has largely flown under the radar, even in drug policy circles. But Greenwald says that, six months after his paper was released, he’s getting more invitations than ever to present it. In August, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof cited it in a column praising Webb’s reform push.

Read the whole thing.  For more Cato scholarship on drug policy, go here.

CBS News Reports on Prospects for Drug Policy Reform is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

George Will’s latest column takes a look a drug policy and the views of the new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowski.  Notably, Will mentions Portugal’s experience with decriminalization of all drugs since 2001 and says Kerlikowski is aware of the Portuguese policy as well.  Cato published a report on Portugal’s drug policy in April and the author, Glenn Greenwald, discussed his findings at a Cato policy forum here.  George Will’s shifting views on drug policy (toward liberalization) reflect the shifting views of other conservative pundits and the public more generally.

Will appeared on ABC on Sunday, and discussed his views on drug policy. Watch:

For more Cato work on drug policy, go here, here, and here.

George Will and Drug Decriminalization is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Even Cuban-Americans appear to have turned against U.S. policy.  Reports the Miami Herald:

A new poll of Cuban Americans shows a strong majority favor allowing all Americans to travel to the island, a major shift from a 2002 survey that showed only a minority supporting the change, the Bendixen & Associates polling firm reported Tuesday.

Executive Vice President Fernand Amandi said he was surprised by the magnitude of the swing in just seven years — from 46 percent in favor in 2002 to 59 percent in the Sept. 24-26 survey. Only 29 percent were opposed in the new survey, compared to 47 percent in 2002.

…A campaign to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba has become a key Washington battleground this year for those who favor and oppose easing U.S. sanctions on the island. Permitting such travel would allow U.S. tourists to visit Cuba. Only Cuban Americans are now allowed virtually unrestricted travel to the island.

At least three bills lifting all restrictions on travel are now before Congress — two in the House and one in the Senate. While most analysts believe the House may well approve some version of the measure, they say it will have little chance of gaining Senate approval because of opposition from Sen. Bob Menendez, a powerful Democrat.

One would think that even the most rabid hawk could agree that a policy which has failed for 50 years has … failed.  There’s no guarantee that ending economic sanctions would spur political liberalization in Cuba.  But after a half century of failure, it makes sense to try something else.

New Poll Shows Support for Lifting Travel Ban to Cuba is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

During a speaking trip to China three years ago, the young tour guide in Beijing kept referring to “the liberation.” I soon realized that she meant the October Revolution of 1949, in which Mao Tse Tung and the communists seized power and began their rule 60 years ago today.

Far from liberating China, the reign of Mao represents one of the worst tyrannies in the history of mankind. Opposition parties, free speech and freedom of religion were quickly eliminated. The Great Leap Forward of 1958-61 forced the collectivization of agriculture, resulting in a famine that killed tens of millions. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, while not as deadly, unleashed chaos that crippled the economy and scarred a generation. As Gordon Chang writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning, the celebration by the Chinese people will be understandably muted.

China’s real liberation began not 60 years ago, but 30 years ago, with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. While China remains an oppressive, one-party state politically, its economy has taken a true great leap forward in the past three decades because of market reforms in agriculture, industry, and trade. China’s liberation has far to go, but the Chinese people today are much more free of government interference in their personal, daily lives than they were in the time of Mao.

When I point to China’s economic progress as an example of what trade liberalization can deliver, my debate opponents will sometimes counter that China is a communist country. But China’s dramatic growth has not occurred because of its residual communism. For 30 years now, its government has been in the process of abandoning the communist economic policies of Mao and his fellow “liberators,” much to the benefit of the Chinese people and the world.

Reflections on China’s 1949 “Liberation” is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In a Cato paper to be released on April 28 (here’s a link to related policy forum), Scott Lincicome and I explain how President Obama can help restore the pro-trade consensus in America. “How?” is one question, but a skeptic might also ask: Why would the president want to do that given his anti-trade campaign rhetoric and the preferences of many fellow Democrats in Congress for a moratorium on trade liberalization and a focus on enforcement?

The answer is quite simple: we believe the president understands the importance of both trade and U.S. trade leadership to the broader objectives of economic growth and good will among nations.  Since he is inevitably going to alienate some of the constituencies who helped get him elected by embracing trade openness, he could be forgiven for his perceived apostasy if he can articulate his rationale convincingly.

The most comprehensive and convincing articulation would begin with the moral case for free trade: that every American has the right to transact with whomever he chooses, regardless of the nationality or location of the other party.  Voluntary exchange between consenting parties is inherently fair, while government coercion in that process on behalf of some citizens at the expense of others is inherently unfair, inefficient, and subversive of the rule of law. We are not holding our breath that this president will make this principled case for free trade.  But his articulation of other pro-trade arguments, after so many years of hyperbole, myth-making and fear-mongering from his colleagues on Capitol Hill, could go a long way toward correcting and reversing Americans’ artificially-induced aversion to trade.

Why are we so sure that President Obama is going to embrace trade openness? Well, we’re not so sure, but it’s more than a hunch. Here are two broad reasons:

First, like all presidents in the modern era, Obama takes a national perspective on economic matters, and not a local or regional perspective, as most members of Congress do. Unlike a candidate or a member of the opposition party in Congress who is free to criticize the incumbent administration’s policy errors without having to seriously consider the pros and cons of the alternatives, the president has to concern himself with the consequences of policy changes. It’s potentially his mess to clean up. As a senator and presidential candidate, Obama promised to aggressively pursue remedies to China’s alleged currency manipulation. As president, Obama declined to act accordingly when given the explicit opportunity, knowing that provocation in that regard would inject more uncertainty into financial markets and could spark retaliation. A protectionist measure that briefly benefits producers in Illinois (which is why a Senator Obama might support it) could have consequences that penalize an array of interests across the country (which is why a President Obama might oppose it).

Second, President Obama—like all Democratic and Republican presidents in the post-WWII era—sees trade policy as a tool of foreign policy. And from his early trips abroad, Obama has learned that to many countries around the world, U.S. trade policy is the most consequential aspect of U.S. foreign policy. So a president who appears determined to repair the damage caused by eight years of unilateralist foreign policy can only embrace trade openness.

In our paper, Scott and I present several other reasons why we are “audaciously hopeful” that the president will help restore the pro-trade consensus. But some nascent support for our audacity can be found in the following examples:

1. President Obama spoke out against the protectionist Buy American provisions in the original “stimulus” package, and Congress subsequently removed its most egregiously protectionist aspects.

2. The president has encouraged Congress to resolve the Mexican trucking ban and bring the United States into compliance with its NAFTA commitments.

3. The Obama Treasury declined to label China a currency manipulator in its first semi-annual report on the topic

4. The president informed Mexican president Calderon last week that he did not think NAFTA would need to be reopened—contrary to his campaign rhetoric.

5. The president said as much to Canadian PM Stephen Harper back in February.

6. There are increasing signs of interest and promise from the White House and Congress that the long-frozen bilateral trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea could start moving soon.

The pro-trade environment is not certain, and it could be fleeting, but there’s a case to be made that it’s not as dire as some predicted it would be. If the president intends to facilitate a liberal trade agenda, he should start laying the groundwork with strong pro-trade arguments now.

Springtime for U.S. Trade Policy? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

El Salvador is becoming an economic success story in Central America, says Cato scholar Juan Carlos Hidalgo.

Since 1992, the country has undertaken an aggressive program of liberalization that has transformed its economy and yielded major improvements in various socioeconomic areas. In a new study, Hidalgo explains how El Salvador “is showing the rest of the region how economic freedom can pave the way for development and how globalization offers great opportunities for developing countries that are willing to implement a coherent set of mutually supportive market reforms.”

In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, Hidalgo explains how despite recent economic reforms, next week’s election in El Salvador could end with a  government that has great admiration for the policies of Hugo Chavez that would turn El Salvador away from market-based reforms.

A third of the [voting] population is under thirty. So that means many young voters don’t remember El Salvador as it was during the early 1990’s… Young people have trouble paying for their cell phone bills, have trouble paying their gas bills and have trouble paying for tuition in colleges. What they don’t remember is fifteen years ago they didn’t have cars, their parents didn’t have cars, their parents didn’t have any cell phones and their parents lived in shanty towns….

…Even though they talk about emulating the socialist revolution in Venezuela, they haven’t been explicit about dismantling democratic institutions in El Salvador.

New Podcast: ‘El Salvador’s Choice’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog