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Mark Weisbrot is an American economist, columnist and co-director of the progressive think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He 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 numerous research papers on economic policy, and extensively about the economies of developing countries, with special attention to Latin America. He has been described as an adviser to and supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's policies.

According to CEPR, 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. CEPR says this challenged the conventional wisdom that neoliberal reforms since 1980 had at least contributed to increasing economic growth, even if other problems (e.g. inequality) had remained or in some cases worsened. He has 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 writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He has appeared on national and local television and radio programs, including 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 Venezuela. Weisbrot is the President of Just Foreign Policy, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reforming United States foreign policy.

Weisbrot has been described as the "intellectual artifice" of Bank of the South, first proposed by Venezuela's Chavez. In a reference to freedom of press and human rights in Venezuela, according to Venezuela's El Universal, Weisbrot said that Venezuela was one of the least repressive countries in the Western hemisphere. Weisbrot advised Oliver Stone on South of the Border, a 2009 film about Chavez which was not well received by US critics.

References

1. ^ Template:Es icon Pino, Soledad. "Mark Weisbrot entrevista: El modelo americano no es mejor que el europeo" (PDF). La Clave. CEPR. Retrieved January 23, 2010.  ...se le considera el artifice intelectual del Banco del Sur, un proyecto impulsado por el presidente venezolano ... Segun fuentes cercanas, el propio Chavez consulta con cierta frecuencia a Weisbrot ...
2. Lane, Walker (April 10, 2006). "An Anarchist At the World Social Forum". Fifth Estate. infoshop.news. Retrieved January 24, 2010. Economist Mark Weisbrot, an American adviser to Chavez, told me as we spoke in his room at the Hilton overlooking the hotel swimming pool, that the government's policies are 'gradualist reform.'
3. Romero, Simon (May 18, 2008). "Chávez Seizes Greater Economic Power". New York Times. Retrieved January 23, 2010. Mark Weisbrot, a Washington-based economist who is broadly supportive of Mr. Chávez's economic policies, ...
4. Template:Es icon "Critican que Miceli exponga en una reunión contra el FMI". Grupo Capital SA. Retrieved January 24, 2010. ... Mark Weisbrot, un conocidísimo defensor -o apologista, según sus críticos-, del presidente Hugo Chávez.
   * Pupovac, Jessica (December 28, 2005). "Chicago Turns Down Discounted Venezuelan Oil". The New Standard. Retrieved January 24, 2010. Weisbrot is a staunch supporter of the Chavez administration.
   * Oppenheimer, Andres (January 14, 2010). "What's behind Hugo Chávez's devaluation? Politics". Columnists: Andres Oppenheimer. The Miami Herald. Retrieved January 24, 2010. Mark Weisbrot, an economist with the left-of-center Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research who generally supports Chávez's policies, told me that ...
   * Morley, Jefferson (September 28, 2005). "Thinking About Chavez". World Opinion Roundup. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 24, 2010. Marc Weisbrot, a Washington economist and supporter of Chavez, ...
   * "Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)". DiscovertheNetwork.org. Retrieved January 24, 2010. A longtime supporter of Chavez, Weisbrot, in a December 2002 article titled 'U.S. Intervening Against Democracy in Venezuela,' impugned the U.S. for sponsoring democratic opposition groups in Venezuela, organizations he dismissed as 'mostly managers and executives' who 'are trying to cripple the economy … in order to overthrow the government.'
   * Laksin, Jacob (January 16, 2007). "'Socialism or Death' in Venezuela". FrontPageMagazine.com. Retrieved January 24, 2010. Predictably, Chavez still has his defenders. In the United States, the task of condoning every new attempt to consolidate power as an affirmation of people's democracy in action has been taken up most prominently by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. The center's co-director, Mark Weisbrot, has reliably praised Chavez's Venezuela as a 'democratic' country and hailed the alleged success of the government's economic policies.
5. CEPR, July 2001. Scorecard on Globalization 1980-2000: 20 Years of Diminished Progress
6. CEPR, September 2005. Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress
7. CEPR, October 2009. Macroeconomic Policies and the World Recession: A Look at Forty-One Borrowing Countries
8. NPR: Marketplace. Scrutinizing the role of the IMF April 24, 2009
9. { Inter-Press Service. WORLD: IMF Has Long Way to Go – Even After "Istanbul Decisions" October 29, 2009
10. ^ CEPR, Mark Weisbrot's Op Eds, accessed 1 August 2009
11. 5 March 2002, Argentina’s Economic Meltdown: Causes and Remedies
12. "Testimony of Mark Weisbrot on the state of democracy in Venezuela" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-02-07.
13. Just Foreign Policy, Board, accessed 13 March 2009
14. Template:Es icon "Promocionan Banco del Sur en Madrid". El Universal. September 19, 2007. Retrieved January 23, 2010.
15. "Chavez and allies challenge IMF, World Bank". Retrieved 2009-02-07.
16. Template:Es icon Matheus, Maria Elena (October 17, 2003). "Periodistas denuncian agresiones promovidas por el gobierno". El Universal. Retrieved January 23, 2010.
17. "Chavez gets red-carpet treatment in Venice". MSNBC. September 7, 2009. Retrieved January 23, 2010. Also here.
18. Time magazine described it as "lopsided and cheerleadery" and stated it lacked any nuance in its worldview. Variety said, "The docu offers little genuine information and no investigative research, adopting a style even more polemical than Stone’s earlier docus on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat." Fabiola Moura wrote that "While the movie is explicitly rosy in its picture of South America's politics, it's a tonic dose of a perspective rarely seen in U.S. media coverage of the region." National Public Radio says the film tells only one side of the story and gives "kid glove treatment" to Chavez and his allies.

External links

• Mark Weisbrot's biography/publications
• Venezuela Head Polishes Image With Oil Dollars. Center for Public Integrity, September 22, 2004. An article discussing Weisbrot and the Venezuela Information Office, and response.
• Template:Es icon "Luis Vicente León // Manipuladores y manipulados". El Universal, December 16, 2007. In an opinion piece, "Manipulators and manipulated", Luis Vicente León says that Weisbrot manipulated information about him in a CEPR report.
• "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. February 24, 2009. Retrieved January 23, 2010.

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