I came of age as an economist in the classroom of Haiti

I came of age as an economist in the classroom of Haiti. The extremes of wealth and deep, pervasive destitution there troubled me. At that time—around 1984—development economics was undergoing a sea change, parallel to the one that had taken place in macroeconomic theory in the 1970s. The frameworks of “redistribution with growth” and the “basic needs approach” to development were in the process of being discarded, and in their stead, market-oriented theoretical approaches that stressed economic openness, liberalization, and a circumscribed role for government in managing the economy moved to the forefront.