Hernando de Soto (economist)
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Hernando de Soto (born 1941 in Arequipa) is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy. He is the director of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), located in Lima.
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Career
De Soto lived for many years in Europe. He did post-graduate work at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva. He has served as an economist for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as president of the Executive Committee of the Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC), as managing director of Universal Engineering Corporation, as a principal of the Swiss Bank Corporation Consultant Group, and as a governor of Peru's Central Reserve Bank.
Reforms in Peru and elsewhere
De Soto was Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori's personal representative and principal advisor until he resigned two months before latter's self-coup in April, 1992. Between 1988 and 1995, he and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) were responsible for some four hundred initiatives, laws, and regulations that modernized Peru's economic system. In particular, ILD designed the land reform of Peru's property system which gave titles to more than 1.2 million families and legitimized some 380,000 firms which previously operated in the black market. By granting titles to small coca farmers in the two main coca-growing areas he deprived the Shining Path of safe haven, recruits and money. The leadership was forced to cities where they were arrested. In addition, the ILD initiated the policies for the stabilization of Peru's economy and the taming of inflation, thereby allowing Peru to return to international financial markets.
After the split with Fujimori, he and his institute designed similar programs in El Salvador, Haiti and Egypt and has been contacted by dozens of other heads of state for assistance.
Works
The main thesis of De Soto's books is that people in developing countries have only informal ownership of land and goods, without interaction with the formal legal and economic systems. This makes it impossible for the poor to convert their informal ownerships into capital which De Soto claims would form the basis for entrepreneurship. Hence farmers in much of the developing world remain trapped in subsistence agriculture.
- The Road to Capitalism and the Spontaneous Generation of Law (2004)
- The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else(2000)
- The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism (2002)
- The Other Path: Invisible Revolution in the Third World (1989)
Other
The original Spanish-language title of de Soto's book The Other Path is El Otro Sendero. This was an allusion to countering the Shining Path guerrillas; the Spanish for "Shining Path" is Sendero Luminoso. The guerillas had in the past attempted to assassinate him.
In 1999 Time magazine chose de Soto as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century.
On May 6, 2004 de Soto received the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and a $500,000 cash award for his contribution to the advancement of private property rights in developing countries.
See also
External link
- Institute for Liberty and Democracy website (http://www.ild.org.pe)
- CNNFN Video Interview with Hernando de Soto (http://www.cato.org/realaudio/desoto-cnn-05-06-04.ram)
- "Peruvian considered finalist for Nobel economics prize" (http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/economy/economics-prize.htm), The Miami Herald October 10, 2001bn:হার্নান্দো ডি সোতো