Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey David Sachs (/sæks/ SAKS; born November 5, 1954)[4] is an American economist and public policy analyst, professor at Columbia University,[5][6] where he was former director of The Earth Institute. He is known for his work on sustainable development, economic development, and the fight to end poverty.[7]
Jeffrey Sachs
Sachs is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.[8]
He is an SDG Advocate for United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global goals adopted at a UN summit meeting in September 2015.
From 2001 to 2018, Sachs was Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, and held the same position under the previous UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and prior to 2016 a similar advisory position related to the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),[9] eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. In connection with the MDGs, he had first been appointed special adviser to the UN Secretary-General in 2002 during the term of Kofi Annan.[9][10]
Sachs is co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger that has come under scrutiny from critics[11] and was the subject of a book by the journalist Nina Munk. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the United Nations Millennium Project's work on the MDGs. He is co-editor of the World Happiness Report with John F. Helliwell and Richard Layard. In 2010, he became a commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, whose stated aim is to boost the importance of broadband internet in international policy.[12] Sachs has written several books and received several awards. He has been criticized for his views on economics, on the origin of COVID-19, as well as on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[13][14]
Early life and education[edit]
Sachs was raised in Oak Park, Michigan, in the Detroit metro area, and is the son of Joan (née Abrams) and Theodore Sachs, a labor lawyer.[15] His family is Jewish.[16] He graduated from Oak Park High School and attended Harvard College, where he received his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in 1976.[17] He went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard with his thesis titled Factor Costs and Macroeconomic Adjustment in the Open Economy: Theory and Evidence,[18] and was invited to join the Harvard Society of Fellows while still a Harvard graduate student.[19]
Academic career[edit]
Harvard University[edit]
In 1980, Sachs joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor in 1982. A year later at the age of 28, he became a professor of economics with tenure at Harvard.[20]
During the next 19 years at Harvard, Sachs became the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade,[21] director of the Harvard Institute for International Development (1995–1999) and director of the Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School (1999–2002).[22]
Columbia University[edit]
Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University. From 2002 to 2016, Sachs was director of the Earth Institute of Columbia University,[9][17][23] a university-wide organization, with an interdisciplinary approach to addressing complex issues facing the Earth, in support of sustainable development.[24] Sachs's classes are taught at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health, and his course "Challenges of Sustainable Development" is taught at the undergraduate level.[25]
Views and commentary[edit]
Nuclear power[edit]
In 2012 Sachs claimed that nuclear power is the only solution to climate change, but he has since revised his opinion, suggesting in 2021 that carbon neutrality could be achieved without the use of nuclear power.[53][54]
China[edit]
Sachs is a "long-time advocate of dismantling American hegemony and embracing the rise of China."[55] He believes the term "genocide" is mistaken in relation to the alleged repression of the Uyghurs in China.[26] He has argued for closer relations between the US and China and warned of the danger of tensions between them.[56][57]
Syria[edit]
In April 2018, he supported President Donald Trump's view that the United States should come out of Syria "very soon", adding: "It's long past time for the United States to end its destructive military engagement in Syria and across the Middle East, though the security state seems unlikely to let this happen".[58][59]
Venezuela[edit]
A 2019 report authored by Sachs and Mark Weisbrot, published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, claimed that a 31% rise in the number of deaths between 2017 and 2018 was due to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela in 2017 and that 40,000 people in Venezuela may have died as a result.[60] The report states: "The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports."[60] Weisbrot stated that the authors "could not prove those excess deaths were the result of sanctions, but said the increase ran parallel to the imposition of the measures and an attendant fall in oil production."[60]
A United States Department of State spokesperson commented that "as the writers themselves concede, the report is based on speculation and conjecture."[60] Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann asserts that the analysis is flawed because it makes invalid assumptions about Venezuela based on a different country like Colombia, saying that "taking what happened in Colombia since 2017 as a counterfactual for what would have happened in Venezuela if there had been no financial sanctions makes no sense." Calling it "sloppy reasoning", the authors also state that the analysis failed to rule out other explanations and failed to correctly account for PDVSA finances.[61]
COVID-19[edit]
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Sachs vocally rejected the COVID-19 lab leak theory (a version of which was being supported by President Donald Trump), which posited the SARS-CoV-2 virus was released from a Chinese laboratory, denouncing it as "reckless and dangerous" and arguing that right-wing politicians pointing fingers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology could "push the world to conflict... Neither the biology nor chronology support the laboratory-release story."[41]
In spring 2020, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, appointed Sachs as chair of its COVID-19 Commission, whose goals were to provide recommendations for public health policy and improve the practice of medicine.[62][63][64] Sachs set up a number of task forces, including one on the origins of the virus. Sachs appointed British American disease ecologist Peter Daszak, a colleague of Sachs' at Columbia, to head this task force, two weeks after the Trump administration prematurely ended a federal grant supporting a project led by Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, which worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[41] This appointment was criticized as creating a conflict of interest, for instance by Richard Ebright, chemical biologist at Rutgers University, who called the commission an "entirely Potemkin commission" in the National Review. However, as Sachs became increasingly drawn to the lab leak theory, he came into conflict with Daszak and his task force, forcing his resignation in summer 2021 and disbanding the group in September that year.[41]
In July 2022, Sachs said he was "pretty convinced," though "not sure" that COVID-19 came out of "US lab biotechnology," which is considered by the European Union to be COVID-19 disinformation by China. While Sachs has leanings toward the possibility of a virus leak from a "U.S.-backed laboratory research program," he has stated that "A natural spillover is also possible, of course. Both hypotheses are viable at this stage."[65]
In August 2022, Sachs gave an hour-long interview on the podcast of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. where he criticized Daszak and accused officials such as Anthony Fauci of "not being honest" about the origins of COVID.[66]
In September 2022, the Lancet commission published a wide-ranging report on the pandemic, including commentary on the virus origin overseen by Sachs. The report suggested that the virus may have originated from an American laboratory.[67] Virologists reacting to this, including Angela Rasmussen, commented that the release may have been "one of The Lancet's most shameful moments regarding its role as a steward and leader in communicating crucial findings about science and medicine."[68] Virologist David Robertson said the suggestion of US laboratory involvement was "wild speculation" and that "it's really disappointing to see such a potentially influential report contributing to further misinformation on such an important topic."[68]
Critical reception[edit]
Economics[edit]
Sachs's economic philosophies have been the subject of controversy.[73] Nina Munk, author of the 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, says that, although well intended, poverty eradication projects endorsed by Sachs have years later "left people even worse off than before".[74][75]
William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, reviewed The End of Poverty for the Washington Post, calling Sachs' poverty eradication plan "a sort of Great Leap Forward".[76] According to Easterly's cross-country statistical analysis in his book The White Man's Burden, from 1985 to 2006, "When we control both for initial poverty and for bad government, it is bad government that explains the slower growth. We cannot statistically discern any effect of initial poverty on subsequent growth once we control for bad government. This is still true if we limit the definition of bad government to corruption alone." Easterly deems the massive aid proposed by Sachs to be ineffective, as its effect will be hampered by bad governance and/or corruption.[77]
Commenting on Sachs' $120 million effort to aid Africa, American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux says these temporary measures failed to create sustained improvements. Theroux focuses on a project in a sparsely populated community of nomadic camel herders in Dertu, Kenya, funded by Sachs' Millennium Villages Project, which cost US$2.5 million over a three-year period. Theroux says that the project's latrines were clogged and overflowing, the dormitories it built quickly became dilapidated, and the livestock market it established ignored local customs and was shut down within a few months. He says that an angry Dertu citizen filed a 15-point written complaint against Sachs's operation, claiming it "created dependence" and that "the project is supposed to be bottom top approached but it is visa [sic] versa."[78]
According to the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, Jeffrey Sachs is one of the architects of "disaster capitalism" after his recommendations in Bolivia, Poland and Russia led to millions of people ending up in the streets.[79]
China[edit]
In December 2018, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of the U.S., which was seeking her extradition to face charges of allegedly violating sanctions against Iran. Soon after Meng's arrest, Sachs wrote an article in which he said her arrest was part of efforts to contain China and accused the U.S. of hypocrisy for seeking her extradition. He wrote that none of the executives of several U.S. companies which had been fined for sanctions violations were arrested. After he was criticized for the article, Sachs closed his Twitter account, which had 260,000 followers.[80] Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow at Asia Society, noted that Sachs had written a foreword to a Huawei position paper, and questioned whether Sachs had been paid by Huawei. Sachs said he had not been paid for the work.[80][81]
In June 2020, Sachs said the targeting of Huawei by the US was not solely about security.[82] In their 2020 book Hidden Hand, Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg commented on one of Sachs' articles in which he accused the U.S. government of maligning Huawei under hypocritical pretenses. Hamilton and Ohlberg wrote that Sachs' article would be more meaningful and influential if he did not have a close relationship with Huawei, including his previous endorsement of the company's "vision of our shared digital future". The authors also alleged that Sachs has ties to a number of Chinese state bodies and the private energy corporation CEFC China Energy for which he has spoken.[83]
During a January 2021 interview, despite the interviewer's repeated prompting, Sachs evaded questions about China's repression of Uyghur people and referred to "huge human rights abuses committed by the U.S."[84] Subsequently, 19 advocacy and rights groups jointly wrote a letter to Columbia University questioning Sachs' comments.[84][85] The letter's signatories wrote that Sachs took the same stance as China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a digression to the history of U.S. rights violations as a way to avoid discussions of China's mistreatment of Uyghurs. The rights groups went on to say that Sachs "betrayed his institution's mission" by trivializing the perspective of those who were oppressed by the Chinese government.[84][85] Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief at The Globalist, and J.D. Bindenagel, a former U.S. ambassador, wrote that Sachs was "actively agitating(!) for a classic Communist propaganda ploy".[86]
War in Ukraine[edit]
Sachs's views on Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022 – and specifically his belief that NATO contributed to it – has been criticized as poorly informed by James Kirchick in The Atlantic[87]. In March 2023 a group of 340 economists published an open letter, criticising his point of view.[88][14]
Awards and honors[edit]
In 2004 and 2005, Sachs was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time. He was also named one of the "500 Most Influential People in the Field of Foreign Policy" by the World Affairs Councils of America.[93]
In 1993, the New York Times called Sachs "probably the most important economist in the world."[31]
In 2005, Sachs received the Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice. In 2007, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor bestowed by the government of India.[94] Also in 2007, he received the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution International Advocate for Peace Award and the Centennial Medal from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for his contributions to society.[36]
In 2007, Sachs received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.[95]
From 2000 to 2001, Sachs was chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health[96] of the World Health Organization (WHO) and from 1999 to 2000 he was a member of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission established by the United States Congress. Sachs has been an adviser to the WHO, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Society of Fellows, the Fellows of the World Econometric Society, the Brookings Panel of Economists, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Board of Advisers of the Chinese Economists Society, among other international organizations.[36] Sachs is also the first holder of the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair in Poverty Studies at the Centre for Poverty and Development Studies at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2007–2009. He holds an honorary professorship at the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru. He has lectured at the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford and Yale University and in Tel Aviv and Jakarta.[36]
In September 2008, Vanity Fair ranked Sachs 98th on its list of 100 members of the New Establishment. In July 2009, Sachs became a member of the Netherlands Development Organization's International Advisory Board.[97] In 2009, Princeton University's American Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Sachs the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.[98]
In 2016, Sachs became president of the Eastern Economic Association, succeeding Janet Currie.[99]
In 2017, Sachs and his wife were the joint recipients of the first World Sustainability Award.[100] In 2015, Sachs was awarded the Blue Planet Prize for his contributions to solving global environmental problems.[101]
In May 2017 Sachs was awarded the Boris Mints Institute Prize for Research of Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges.[102]
In 2022 Sachs was awarded the Tang Prize in the category of sustainable development.[103]