On Latin American Populism, And Its Echoes Around the World Sebastian Edwards NBER Working Paper No. 26333

Issued in October 2019

NBER Program(s):International Finance and Macroeconomics

In this paper I discuss the ways in which populist experiments have evolved historically. Populists are charismatic leaders that use a fiery rhetoric to pitch the interests of “the people” against those of banks, large firms, multinational companies, the IMF, and immigrants. Populists implement redistributive policies that violate the basic laws of economics, and in particular budget constraints. Most populist experiments go through five distinct phases that span from euphoria to collapse. Historically, the vast majority of populist episodes end up with declines in national income. When everything is over, incomes of the poor and middle class tend to be lower than when the experiment was launched. I argue that many of the characteristics of traditional Latin American populism are present in more recent manifestations from around the globe. You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery. Access to NBER Papers You are eligible for a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, an employee of the U.S. federal government with a ".GOV" domain name, or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy. If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access. E-mail:

Acknowledgments Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w26333 Published: Sebastian Edwards, 2019. "On Latin American Populism, and Its Echoes around the World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol 33(4), pages 76-99.