Tainted Transactions: An Exchange

National Interest, The, Summer, 2000 by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Anders Aslund, Marek Dabrowski, Peter Reddaway, Igor Aristov, Wayne Merry, Michael Hudson, David Ellerman, Steven Rosefielde

As to Sachs/[dot{A}]slund's more general comments, former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz is among a growing number of economists who believe that the policies that Sachs and [dot{A}]slund advocated were misconceived and harmful to Russia and to most of the other post-communist countries. Russia didn't "stumble", as [dot{A}]slund characterizes it; it was inundated with counterproductive advice from people like himself.

With regard to Poland, although its economy has grown, this success was achieved not by following a radical transition program, but, as Harvard Professor Marshall Goldman has shown, by rejecting key parts of it. Further, high-level corruption has become so institutionalized that the World Bank has urged Poland to begin fighting it. I have not accused Sachs, as [dot{A}]slund writes, of "having destroyed the Polish economy." On the contrary, I have pointed out that Sachs' role in the Polish transition was largely promotional, a point confirmed by the Polish government in the Financial Times (June 15-16, 1991).

Finally, [dot{A}]slund manages to cite the only negative review (that I know of) to try to discredit my work. In fact, Collision and Collusion has been widely reviewed in places such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Foreign Affairs, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote of the book: "Very critical and troubling analysis of the shortcomings of Western aid policy, particularly to Russia. The implications of Wedel's critical assessment need to be seriously taken into account." The other letters printed above share that view, and I thank their authors for their support.