Washington Consensus
Neoliberal policy framework
The Washington Consensus is a set of free-market economic policies promoted by the IMF, World Bank, and U.S.
Treasury beginning in the late 1980s—emphasizing fiscal discipline, trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation.
Originally prescribed for developing countries seeking loans, the term now often carries critical connotations, implying a one-size-fits-all approach that prioritizes markets over social welfare: Critics blamed the Washington Consensus for Latin America's economic instability.
- Bretton Woods systemPostwar fixed exchange rate framework
- fiscal disciplineControlled government spending
- neoliberalismPro-market, anti-regulation ideology
- deregulationRemoving governmental business restrictions
- emerging marketsRapidly growing economies
austerity measures · belt tightening · Latin America · debt crisis · debt restructuring · globalization · tax reform · free trade agreements · privatization · IMF · tariff reduction · open markets · World Bank · conditionality · Reaganomics · Thatcherism · trickle down · Milton Friedman
- Latin American Economicsimport substitution, debt crisis, hyperinflation, foreign debt, export economy
- neoliberalismfree markets, deregulation, privatization, free trade, liberalization
Washington Consensusprotectionism
Shielding local producers
state capitalism · economic nationalism · dirigisme · Keynesianism · command economy
Washington Consensusanti-globalization
Opposition to worldwide economic integration