The difficulties of reform...

When dealing with economic, social an political reforms we often know where we would like to get... however, in the way we might confront different obstacles which critically undermine the efforts to reach that goal and also distort the objectives pursued. The most important ones are referred to the stakeholders contrary to this reforms. Confronting this resistance is a major issue in any reform. The OECD has recently published its third annual "Going for Growth" report analysing all these aspects based on the experience we have on the structural reforms being done in European countries.

Eventhough it seems pretty difficult to use all the recommendations offered in this report for developing countries, major donors and IFIs can certainly take good note of them!

Rodrik and Rodríguez (Resistance to reform – status quo bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty) modelled these same issues in the case of trade reform in the American Economic Review (81 (5):1166-55, 1991). Another very interesting insight from this great great economist.