Jeffrey Sachs

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Jeffrey Sachs, 2011 at the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta

Jeffrey David Sachs (born November 5, 1954 in Detroit ) is an American economist and special advisor to the Millennium Development Goals since 2002 . He is director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University .

Life

Jeffrey Sachs graduated in 1976 with a bachelor's degree summa cum laude at Harvard College , then a master's degree in economics at Harvard University . In 1980 he completed his PhD in Economics at Harvard University with a dissertation on Factor Costs and Macroeconomic Adjustment in the Open Economy: Theory and Evidence . He was initially a lecturer, from 1983 also a professor at the economics faculty of Harvard University.

In 2002, Sachs became director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University , professor of sustainable development and professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor for the Millennium Development Goals to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research . Sachs was also an advisor to the IMF , the World Bank , the OECD , the WTO and the UNDP .

In the 1980s and 1990s, he advised several countries with economic problems: from 1985 in Bolivia, from 1989 in Poland, from 1991 in Russia. In 1989, Yugoslavia concluded the so-called " Marković- Saxon Program" with the IMF , which came about only at the urging of the IMF. Radical import liberalization was carried out within a few months in 1989/90, which led to the bankruptcy of 2,435 companies with a total of 1.3 million employees by the end of 1990. The gross national product of Yugoslavia fell by 7.5 percent in 1990 and by 15 percent in 1991.

Above all , he was criticized for the policy of rapid privatization in the style of shock therapy (see also coupon privatization ) that he recommended . Many economists, such as Joseph E. Stiglitz , believe that this radical neo-liberal approach contributed to the rapid economic collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Sachs was active in India from 1994, and since 1995 he has been particularly concerned with Africa.

Together with the scientists Heiner Flassbeck , Thomas Piketty , Dani Rodrik and Simon Wren-Lewis , he published an open letter to Angela Merkel during the Greek sovereign debt crisis in July 2015 , in which she was asked to reduce Greece's debts and the government there for a long period of time to allow repayment of the remaining debt. Andrian Kreye criticized in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the authors of the letter had given up their scientific objectivity and lost credibility in order to exert political influence. During the negotiations, a few days later, Sachs posted numerous messages on Twitter in which he expressed indignation about the German finance minister and his alleged conduct of the negotiations.

Act

His research interests particularly focus on the connection between health and economic development, economic geography, globalization , transformation to a market economy , international financial markets, international macroeconomic policy coordination, emerging markets, development economics and economic growth, global competition and macroeconomic economic policy in developing and industrialized countries. His idea of ​​basing development aid on a “clinical analysis” of the respective specific patient rejects all simple problem-solving suggestions.

Sachs is committed to extensive debt relief for extremely poor countries and in the fight against diseases, especially HIV / AIDS in developing countries . He criticizes the WTO and the IMF because the donors of these organizations are not ready to provide effective aid to the extremely poor. He accuses the American government of not being ready to provide 0.7% of gross national product for development aid. He was criticized by William Easterly for his demand to further increase development aid , as this had achieved at most modest success in the past and a “planner mentality” or a top-down approach was ineffective.

In the 1990s, Sachs repeatedly criticized the International Monetary Fund for its policies and accused bankers of ineffective investment strategies.

honors and awards

  • 1996: Admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (USA)
  • 2000: Bernhard Harms Prize from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy
  • 2007: Padma Bhushan (India)
  • 2009: World Economic Prize (Germany)
  • 2015: Blue Planet Prize
  • 2015: Quartz Podcast Award for best business / economics podcast of 2015 (Conversion Tyler Cowen / Jeffrey Sachs)
  • 2017: Globart Award (Austria)
  • 2017: World Sustainability Award of the World Sustainability Forum, together with his wife Sonia Ehrlich Sachs
  • Admission to the Institute of Medicine
  • Admission to the Harvard Society of Fellows
  • Fellow of the World Econometric Society
  • Boris Mints Institute Prize at Tel Aviv University

Works (selection)

  • Developing country debt and economic performance (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. 1989
  1. The international financial system , ISBN 0-226-73332-7 .
  2. Country studies. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico , ISBN 0-226-73333-5 .
  3. Country studies. Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Turkey , ISBN 0-226-73335-1 .
  • Developing country debt and the world economy (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. 1989, ISBN 0-226-73338-6 .
  • Development economics. Inframarginal versus marginal analysis . OUP, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-631-22003-8 .
  • The end of poverty. An economic program for a fairer world (The end of poverty). Edition Pantheon, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-570-55012-5 .
  • Invest in development. A practical plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (investing in development). United Nations, New York 2005.
  • Macroeconomics in a global perspective (Macroeconomics in the global economy). Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-25826-5 (together with Felipe Larraín Bascuñán )
  • Poland's jump to the market economy (Lionel Robbins Lectures; 3). MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1994, ISBN 0-262-69174-4 .
  • The rule of law and economic reform in Russia (John M. Olin Critical Issues Series). Westview Press, Boulder, Colo. 1997, ISBN 0-8133-3314-8 (together with Katharina Pistor )
  • Stagflation in the World Economy . University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1985, ISBN 0-674-23475-8 (together with Michael Bruno )
  • Prosperity for many. Global economic policy in times of ecological and social crisis (Common wealth). Siedler, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-88680-860-1 .

Secondary literature

Web links

Commons : Jeffrey Sachs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sustainable Development Solutions Network : Jeffrey Sachs . Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  2. ↑ Jörg Roesler : With or without Western money? The IMF and the socialist states , in: WeltTrends , vol. 16, no . 59, 2008, pp. 85–96 (here: p. 92).
  3. ^ Joseph Stiglitz: The ruin of Russia , in: The Guardian , April 9, 2003.
  4. ↑ "Now is the time to rethink the failed austerity policy" Tagesspiegel from July 7, 2015
  5. ^ "Science deprives itself of its most powerful weapon" Süddeutsche Zeitung of July 10, 2015
  6. ^ Ulrich Schäfer: "Twitter thunderstorms against Merkel and Schäuble" Süddeutsche Zeitung from July 12, 2015
  7. ↑ Jeffrey Sachs: The IMF Is a Power Unto Itself. In: uv.es. Financial Times, December 11, 1997, accessed September 10, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Jeffrey Sachs: Fixing the IMF and the World Bank. In: Project Syndicate. October 4, 1999, accessed September 10, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Bernhard Harms Prize. ifw-kiel.de , archived from the original on June 14, 2013 ; Retrieved June 15, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Sachs, Jeffrey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sachs, Jeffrey David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American economist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th November 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan, USA