Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms

Reviews / Votes

'Learning, Policy Making, and Market Reforms is a benchmark study of the influence of ideas on policy changes. Why do politicians undertake risky economic reforms? In times of hardship and uncertainty, do they simply emulate what other governments do? Are they influenced by the nature of the regime, the ideology of the governments, the proximity of elections, the social and political costs of reforms? Or are politicians rational learners, searching for information, either from their own past or from other countries, about which policies work, accordingly updating their initial beliefs? The book tests a theoretically sophisticated model of learning with massive quantitative evidence on the changes in the strategies of economic development, programs of privatization, IMF agreements, and liberalization of capital accounts that took place in the 1980s and 1990s, in both developing and developed countries. The result is an exceptionally insightful analysis that will be an essential reference for students of political economy and comparative politics.' Jose Maria Maravall, Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (CEACS), Fundacion Juan March, Spain 'This book makes a major contribution to the growing literature on policy diffusion. Why do governments seem to follow one another in adopting similar economic policies? Existing explanations include emulation, imposition by international forces, and similar domestic political and economic circumstances. What makes Meseguer's study important and original is its careful work on rational learning as a mechanism of policy diffusion. Beautifully written and methodologically sophisticated, the book first develops a theory of learning and then shows empirically that rational learning influences the policy decisions of governments. The volume is essential reading for people interested in international relations and economic development.' James Vreeland, Georgetown University 'In this excellent contribution to the burgeoning literature on policy diffusion, Covadonga Meseguer demonstrates through a sophisticated theoretical analysis and rigorous empirical tests that countries learn from foreign policy success; thus, globalization brings the spread of proven solutions, not just fads and fashions.' Kurt G. Weyland, University of Texas at Austin