The Post-COVID Consensus

Development economics is turning a full circle with a difference. This paper addresses the circling back to the policies in vogue during the 1980s and earlier, including industrial policies, coupled with protectionism; accounts for the regression to earlier certitudes after an extended spell of globalization underpinned by market fundamentalism; and indicates how a transforming global environment has enlarged the policy agenda. There is a new policy consensus in the making, which borrows some elements of the Washington Consensus but goes beyond to encompass a broader policy agenda.