The Martin H. Crego Lecture in Economics will be delivered by Ha-Joon Chang tomorrow at 8PM, Taylor Hall 203, Vassar College. Chang is a Cambridge economist and author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Here’s a review from Bookforum which offers the following summary:

But neoliberalism turned out not to be the panacea its advocates promised. Even as developing countries opened up their markets, sold off assets, and cut back on spending, their economies for the most part stagnated. In fact, over the past twenty-five years, growth rates in most of the developing world have been lower than they were during the 1960s and ’70s, when state interventionism was in economic vogue. And while there have been some massive success stories in recent decades—most obviously China and India—the gap in wealth between the developed world and most developing countries has actually widened. Plenty of explanations have been given for neoliberalism’s failure, including the persistence of corruption, the importance of culture, and the simple failure on the part of many countries to follow the neoliberal agenda completely. But in his new book, Bad Samaritans, the Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang offers a more succinct solution to the puzzle: Neoliberalism didn’t work because the advice it gave made no sense. In thrall to the “myth of free trade,” Chang argues, neoliberals ignored the “secret history of capitalism”: If developing countries’ embrace of the free market has failed to deliver what it promised, it’s because “free markets are not good at promoting economic development.”

A more admiring review from the Independent here.