The Summers memo was a 1991 memo on trade liberalization that was written by Lant Pritchett and signed by Lawrence Summers who was then Chief Economist of the World Bank. It included a section that both Summers and Pritchett say was sarcastic that suggested dumping toxic waste in third-world countries for perceived economic benefits.[1]
After the material was leaked by Roberto Smeraldi of Friends of the Earth to Jornal do Brasil on February 2, 1992.[2] Pritchett (who worked under Summers) stated that he had written the memo and Summers had only signed it, and that it was intended to be "sarcastic". According to Pritchett, the memo as leaked was doctored to remove context and intended irony, and was "a deliberate fraud and forgery to discredit Larry and the World Bank".[3]
Daniel Hausman and Michael McPherson have argued that the satirical section might seem to be based in economics as a science, but in fact contains strong moral premises which cannot be removed and still leave the argument intact.[4] Brazil's environment secretary Jose Lutzenberger argued that it demonstrated "the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in".[5]
^Johnson, Jay; Gary Pecquet; Leon Taylor (Fall 2007). "Potential Gains from Trade in Dirty Industries: Revisiting Lawrence Summers' Memo" (PDF). Cato Journal. 27 (3). Cato Institute.
^"World Bank Analyst Suggests Transferring Pollution to the Poor". Jornal do Brasil. 2 February 1992., quoted on page 135 of Nomination Of Lawrence H. Summers: Hearing before the Committee on Finance, Senate, 103rd Cong. 1 (1993).
^"Toxic Memo". Harvard Magazine. 1 May 2001. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
^Hausman, Daniel M.; McPherson, Michael S. (2006). Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 12–23. ISBN 9781139450652.
^"Lawrence Summers: Africa Is". HuffPost. 6 December 2008.
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