Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. CEPR Paper Responds to Foreign Affairs on VenezuelaCEPR Paper Responds to Foreign Affairs on Venezuelaby Mark Weisberg Center for Economic and Policy Research March 21, 2008 Washington, D.C. A new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research responds to a recent article by Francisco Rodriguez in the March/April 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs that argued that Venezuela's poor have not benefited from the government of President Hugo Chavez. "In the five years since the Venezuelan government has gotten control over its national oil company, the economy (real GDP) has grown more than 87 percent, poverty has been cut in half, and unemployment by more than half," said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR Co-Director and author of the paper, "An Empty Research Agenda: The Creation of Myths About Contemporary Venezuela." "Real social spending per person has increased by more than 300 percent, and the government has expanded access to health care, subsidized food, and education. Under these conditions, it would indeed be remarkable if the living standards of the poor had not improved substantially," he added. The paper looks at various claims in the Foreign Affairs article by Francisco Rodriguez: Rodriguez claims that inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient has worsened during the Chavez years. This is wrong. The only consistent measure of the Gini coefficient shows a substantial decline from 48.7 in 1998, or alternatively from 48.1 in 2003, to 42 in 2007. For a rough idea of the size of this reduction in inequality, compare this to a similar movement in the other direction: from 1980-2005, the Gini coefficient for the United States went from 40.3 to 46.9, a period in which there was an enormous (upward) redistribution of income. Read more... Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!). |
