Editing Washington Consensus (section)

====Origins of policy agenda====
Although Williamson's label of the Washington Consensus draws attention to the role of the Washington-based agencies in promoting the above agenda, a number of authors have stressed that Latin American policy-makers arrived at their own packages of policy reforms primarily based on their own analysis of their countries' situations. Thus, according to [[Joseph Stanislaw]] and [[Daniel Yergin]], authors of ''[[The Commanding Heights]]'', the policy prescriptions described in the Washington Consensus were "developed in Latin America, by Latin Americans, in response to what was happening both within and outside the region."<ref name="Yergin and Stanislaw">{{cite book|last1=Yergin|first1=Daniel|last2=Stanislaw|first2=Joseph|author-link1=Daniel Yergin|author-link2=Joseph Stanislaw|title=The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy|date=2002|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]|location=New York City|isbn=9780743229630|page=[https://archive.org/details/commandingheight00yerg_1/page/237 237]|url=https://archive.org/details/commandingheight00yerg_1|url-access=registration|access-date=July 3, 2015}}</ref> [[Joseph Stiglitz]] has written that "the Washington Consensus policies were designed to respond to the very real problems in Latin America and made considerable sense" (though Stiglitz has at times been an outspoken critic of IMF policies as applied to developing nations).<ref>Joseph Stiglitz, ''Globalization and its Discontents'' (2002), p. 53.</ref> In view of the implication conveyed by the term Washington Consensus that the policies were largely external in origin, Stanislaw and Yergin report that the term's creator, John Williamson, has "regretted the term ever since", stating "it is difficult to think of a less diplomatic label."<ref name="Yergin and Stanislaw" />

Williamson regretted the use of "Washington" in the Washington Consensus, as it incorrectly suggested that development policies stemmed from Washington and were externally imposed on others.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Spence|first=Michael|date=2021|title=Some Thoughts on the Washington Consensus and Subsequent Global Development Experience|journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives|volume=35|issue=3|pages=67–82 |doi=10.1257/jep.35.3.67 |issn=0895-3309|doi-access=free}}</ref> Williamson said in 2002, "The phrase "Washington Consensus" is a damaged brand name... Audiences the world over seem to believe that this signifies a set of neoliberal policies that have been imposed on hapless countries by the Washington-based international financial institutions and have led them to crisis and misery. There are people who cannot utter the term without foaming at the mouth. My own view is of course quite different. The basic ideas that I attempted to summarize in the Washington Consensus have continued to gain wider acceptance over the past decade, to the point where [[Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva|Lula]] has had to endorse most of them in order to be electable. For the most part they are motherhood and apple pie, which is why they commanded a consensus."<ref name="Williamson2002" />

According to a 2011 study by [[Nancy Birdsall]], [[Augusto de la Torre]], and [[Felipe Valencia Caicedo]], the policies in the original consensus were largely a creation of Latin American politicians and technocrats, with Williamson's role having been to gather the ten points in one place for the first time, rather than to "create" the package of policies.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|last1=Birdsall|first1=Nancy|last2=Torre|first2=Augusto De La|last3=Caicedo|first3=Felipe Valencia|editor1-first=José Antonio|editor1-last=Ocampo|editor2-first=Jaime|editor2-last=Ros|date=2011|title=The Washington Consensus: Assessing A "damaged Brand"|url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571048.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199571048-e-4|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803185258/https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571048.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199571048-e-4|archive-date=August 3, 2021|website=The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Economics|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199571048.001.0001|isbn=978-0-19-957104-8|access-date=June 5, 2022}}</ref> Kate Geohegan of [[Harvard University]]'s [[Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies]] credited Peruvian neoliberal economist [[Hernando de Soto (economist)|Hernando de Soto]] for inspiring the Washington Consensus.<ref name=":14">{{Cite book|last=Pee|first=Robert|title=The Reagan Administration, the Cold War, and the Transition to Democracy Promotion|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|year=2018|isbn=978-3319963815|pages=168–187}}</ref> Williamson partly credited de Soto himself for the prescriptions, saying his work was "the outcome of the worldwide intellectual trends to which Latin America provided" and said that de Soto was directly responsible for the recommendation on legal security for property rights.<ref name=":14" />