Crouching beliefs, hidden biases: The rise and fall of growth narratives

The debate among economists about an optimal growth recipe has been the subject of competing narratives. We identify-four major growth narratives using the text analytics of IMF country reports over 1978-2019. The narrative Economic Structure-services, manufacturing, and agriculture-has been on a secular decline overshadowed by the Structural Reforms-competitiveness, transparency, and governance. We observe the rise and fall of the Washington Consensus-privatization and liberalization- and the rise to dominance of the Washington Constellation, a collection of many disparate terms such as productivity, tourism, and inequality. We interpret these changes through the lens of a nexus of the changing pool of economic ideas, the power structure within organizations, and the shocks that trigger a shift of narratives and their translation into policies.(c) 2023 International Monetary fund. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The debate among economists about an optimal growth recipe has been the subject of competing narratives. Four major growth narratives are identified using text analytics of IMF country reports.