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Mark Weisbrot is an American economist co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and a vocal supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in the United States. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He has written numerous research papers on economic policy, and is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), a refutation of prevailing wisdom on reform of the Social Security system in the United States. He has written extensively about the economies of developing countries, with special attention to Latin America.

Weisbrot was one of the first economists to document and call attention to the long-term economic growth failure in the vast majority of developing countries since 1980, as well as the consequent decline in progress on such social indicators as life expectancy and infant and child mortality. This challenged the conventional wisdom that neoliberal reforms since 1980 has at least contributed to increasing economic growth, even if other problems (e.g. inequality) had remained or in some cases worsened. He has also been one of the most widely cited critics of IMF-supported policies in developing countries.

Weisbrot writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed nationwide by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, and virtually all other major U.S. newspapers, as well as numerous foreign newspapers. He also writes a weekly columns for The Guardian. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs; appearances have included CBS, the PBS Newshour, CNN, the BBC, National Public Radio and Fox News.

Weisbrot has several times contributed testimony to Congressional hearings, in 2002 to a House of Representatives committee, on Argentina's 1999 - 2002 economic crisis and in 2004 to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the state of democracy in Venezuela, and on media representation of Hugo Chávez and of Chávez's Venezuela. Weisbrot is also the President of Just Foreign Policy, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reforming United States foreign policy.

References

1. "Chavez continues takeovers". New York Times. Montpelier Times-Argus. 18 May 2008. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
2. "10 Years with President Hugo Chavez: Diego Arria and Mark Weisbrot Debating the Progress of the Bolivarian Revolution at American University". American University, Washington DC. 24 Feb. 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. CEPR, July 2001. Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000: 20 Years of Diminished Progress
4. CEPR, September 2005. Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress
5. CEPR, October 2009. Macroeconomic Policies and the World Recession: A Look at Forty-One Borrowing Countries
6. NPR: Marketplace. Scrutinizing the role of the IMF April 24, 2009
7. Inter-Press Service. WORLD: IMF Has Long Way to Go – Even After "Istanbul Decisions" October 29, 2009
8. ^ CEPR, Mark Weisbrot's Op Eds, accessed 1 August 2009
9. 5 March 2002, Argentina’s Economic Meltdown: Causes and Remedies
10. "Testimony of Mark Weisbrot on the state of democracy in Venezuela" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-02-07.
11. Just Foreign Policy, Board, accessed 13 March 2009

External links

• Mark Weisbrot's biography/publications

• American economists
• American economics writers
• American columnists
• University of Michigan alumni
• Living people