Sachs, Jeffrey (1944–)

Jeffrey Sachs is an American economist whose proposals as an international adviser on all continents have been controversial, earning both high praise and sharp criticism. Credited for ending hyperinflation in Bolivia in 1985, he later advised postsocialist countries on the transition to capitalism. Sachs argued for debt cancellation in crisis-stricken countries. Committed to the increase of international aid to reduce poverty and disease, he launched the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and published the best-selling The End of Poverty (2005). Although he was at one time a believer in market orthodoxy, he later came to advocate "clinical economics," crafting solutions specific to circumstances, including climate and geography. Since 2002 he has served as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he also teaches sustainable development and health policy and management.

See alsoChicago Boys; Neoliberalism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conaghan, Catherine M. "Reconsidering Jeffrey Sachs and the Bolivian Economic Experiment." In Money Doctors, Foreign Debts, and Economic Reforms in Latin America from the 1890s to the Present, edited by Paul W. Drake. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994.

Sachs, Jeffrey. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin, 2005.

Sachs, Jeffrey. "Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals." 2005. Available from http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/index.htm.

                           Veronica Montecinos