Daniel Cohen (French economist)

Daniel Cohen is a French economist who has advised the CIS (former Soviet Republics) and Bolivia in their shock therapy transitions from protected/managed economies to open capitalist economists. Daniel Cohen is now an advisor to Lazard, the Greek government and the French Socialist Party.

Shock Therapy: Bolivia

Renaud Lambert reports:

In 1985, Daniel Cohen visited Bolivia with “shock therapy” pioneer Jeffrey Sachs; invited by Victor Paz Estenssoro’s government to "stabilise the economy", Sachs, Cohen and Felipe Larraín drafted Supreme Decree 21060, with measures that included the privatisation of state enterprises, public spending cuts and the redundancy of 20,000 tin miners (most of whom turned to coca growing). When the Bolivian Workers’ Centre (COB), the country’s main trade union federation, called for a general strike, the government declared a state of emergency and imprisoned 175 of its leaders. Professor Kenneth D Lehman writes: “The statistical details roll by too quickly for an outsider to fully grasp the human costs. In 1986, the purchasing power of the average Bolivian was down 70%. ... Unemployment reached 20-25%, and nearly all social welfare benefits to workers were swept away”

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