The revenge of orthodoxy

Across the world, emerging economies that tried to defy orthodox policy making are in danger

Sri Lanka has been hit by something of a perfect storm. It had a feckless leadership interested in populism and not policy; cranks pushing anti-Western theories had great influence in the corridors of power; the country had built up a large store of debt during its long civil war and rebuilding effort; one of its main foreign exchange earners, tourism, had collapsed thanks to the pandemic; another, tea, had suffered because those aforementioned cranks imposed a ban on fertilisers; foreign capital is flowing back into the West as their central banks raise rates; the dollar is, consequently, strengthening; and, finally,