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Jeffrey Sachs | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Sachs in 2019 | |
| Born | Jeffrey David Sachs (1954-11-05)November 5, 1954 (age 71) Oak Park, Michigan, U.S. |
| Spouse | Sonia Ehrlich Sachs |
| Children | 3 |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Harvard University (BA,MA,PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Martin Feldstein[2] |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | |
| School or tradition | Keynesian economics[1] |
| Institutions | Harvard University Columbia University |
| Doctoral students | |
| Notable ideas | Millennium Villages Project |
| Website | |
Jeffrey David Sachs (/sæks/SAKS; born November 5, 1954)[4] is an American economist and public policy analyst who is aprofessor atColumbia University,[5][6] where he was formerly director ofThe Earth Institute. He worked onsustainable development andeconomic development.[7]
Sachs is director of theCenter for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the UNSustainable Development Solutions Network.[8] He is an SDG Advocate forUnited Nations (UN)Secretary-GeneralAntónio Guterres on theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 global goals adopted at a UN summit meeting in 2015.[9]
From 2001 to 2018, Sachs was special advisor to the UN Secretary-General. Until 2016 he held a similar advisory position related to theMillennium Development Goals (MDGs),[10] eight internationally sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger, and disease by 2015. In connection with the MDGs, he was appointed special adviser to the UN Secretary-General in 2002 during the term ofKofi Annan.[10][11]
Sachs is co-founder and chief strategist ofMillennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to endingextreme poverty and hunger. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of theUnited Nations Millennium Project's work on the MDGs. In 2010, he became a commissioner for theBroadband Commission for Sustainable Development, whose stated aim is to boost the importance ofbroadband internet in international policy.[12] Sachs has written several books and received several awards. His views on economics, on theorigin of COVID-19, and on theRussian invasion of Ukraine have garnered attention and criticism.[13][14]
Sachs was raised inOak Park, Michigan, part of theDetroit metropolitan area. He is the son of Joan (née Abrams) and Theodore Sachs, a labor lawyer.[15] Raised in a Jewish family,[16] Sachs graduated fromOak Park High School before attendingHarvard College, where he earned hisB.A. degree in Economics,summa cum laude, in 1976.[17][18] He continued his studies atHarvard University, receiving anM.A. degree in 1978 and aPh.D. in 1980, both in Economics.[17][19] During his graduate years, he was honored with an invitation to join theHarvard Society of Fellows.[20]
Sachs joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor in 1980 and was promoted to associate professor in 1982. A year later, at age 28, he became a tenured professor of economics at Harvard.[21]
During the next 19 years, Sachs became the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade,[22] director of theHarvard Institute for International Development (1995–1999), and director of the Center for International Development atHarvard Kennedy School (1999–2002).[23]
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 theEarth Institute of Columbia University,[10][18][24] a university-wide organization with an interdisciplinary approach to addressing complex issues facing the Earth, in support of sustainable development.[25] Sachs's classes are taught at theSchool of International and Public Affairs and theMailman School of Public Health, and his course "Challenges of Sustainable Development" is taught at the undergraduate level.[26]
Sachs has advised several countries on economic policy.[27][28]
Before the1985 Bolivian general election,Hugo Banzer asked Sachs to advise him on an anti-inflation plan to implement if he was elected. Sachs's stabilization plan centered on price deregulation, particularly for oil, along with cuts to the national budget. Sachs said his plan could end Bolivianhyperinflation, which had reached up to 14,000%, in a single day.[29][non-primary source needed] Banzer lost the election toVíctor Paz Estenssoro, but Sachs's plan was still implemented. Inflation quickly stabilized in Bolivia.[30][31]
Sachs's suggestion for reducing inflation was to apply fiscal and monetary discipline[clarification needed] and end economic regulation that protected the elites[clarification needed] and blocked the free market.[clarification needed] Hyperinflation reduced within weeks after the Bolivian government implemented his suggestions and the government settled its $3.3 billion debt to international lenders for about 11 cents on the dollar. At the time, this was about 85% of Bolivia's GDP.[20][32]
In 1989, Sachs advised Poland'santicommunistSolidarity movement and the government of Prime MinisterTadeusz Mazowiecki. He wrote a comprehensive plan for the transition fromcentral planning to amarket economy that was incorporated into Poland's reform program, led by Finance MinisterLeszek Balcerowicz. Sachs was the main architect of Poland's debt reduction operation. He and IMF economistDavid Lipton advised on the rapid conversion of all property and assets from public to private ownership. Closure of many uncompetitive factories ensued.[33] In Poland, Sachs was firmly on the side of rapid transition to capitalism. At first, he proposed U.S.-style corporate structures, with professional managers answering to many shareholders and a large economic role for stock markets. That did not sit well with the Polish authorities, but he then proposed that large blocks of the shares of privatized companies be placed in the hands of private banks.[34] As a result, there were some economic shortages and inflation, but prices in Poland eventually stabilized.[35][36] In 1999, the government of Poland awarded Sachs one of its highest honors, the Commander's Cross of theOrder of Merit.[19] He received an honorary doctorate from theKraków University of Economics.[22] After Poland's success, his advice was sought by Soviet PresidentMikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Russian PresidentBoris Yeltsin, on the transition of the USSR/Russia to a market economy.[36]
Sachs's methods for stabilizing economies became known asshock therapy and were similar to successful approaches used in Germany after the two world wars.[20] He faced criticism after the Russian economy underwent significant struggles after adopting the market-based shock therapy in the early 1990s.[37][38][39]
Since his work in post-communist countries, Sachs has turned to global issues ofeconomic development,poverty alleviation,health and aid policy, andenvironmental sustainability. He has written extensively onclimate change,disease control, andglobalization. Since 1995, he has been engaged in efforts to alleviatepoverty in Africa.[40] According toNew York Magazine,
Sachs's ambitions are hard to overstate... "His ultimate goal is to change the world—to 'bend history', as he once said, quotingRobert F. Kennedy", wroteNina Munk inThe Idealist, a biography of Sachs. By the early aughts, he had risen from wonky academic to celebrity public intellectual. According to Munk, people in Sachs's inner circle affectionately called him a "shit disturber", someone whose ego was offset by a selfless genius and a penchant for challenging orthodoxies. "There's a certain messianic quality about him",George Soros, one of his patrons, told Munk.[41]
Sachs suggests that with improved seeds, irrigation and fertilizer, thecrop yields in Africa and other places withsubsistence farming can be increased from 1 ton per hectare to 3 to 5 tons per hectare. He said that increased harvests would significantly increase subsistence farmers' income, reducing poverty. Sachs does not believe that increased aid is the only solution. He also supports establishingcredit and microloan programs, which are often lacking in impoverished areas.[42]
He is founding editor of theWorld Happiness Report.[43]
TheMillennium Villages Project (MVP), which he directs, operates in more than a dozen African countries and covers more than half a million people. Its critics have questioned both the project's design and claims made for its success. In 2012,The Economist reviewed the project and concluded, "the evidence does not yet support the claim that the millennium villages project is making a decisive impact".[44] Critics have said that the program did not include suitable controls to allow an accurate determination of whether its methods were responsible for any observed gains in economic development. A 2012Lancet paper claiming a threefold increase in the rate of decline in childhood mortality was criticized for flawed methodology; the authors later admitted that the claim was "unwarranted and misleading".[45] In her 2013 bookThe Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, journalistNina Munk concluded that the MVP was a failure.[46]
After the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, Sachs chaired the WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (2000–2001), which played a pivotal role in scaling up the financing of health care and disease control in the low-income countries to support MDGs 4, 5 and 6. He worked with UN Secretary-GeneralKofi Annan in 2000–2001 to design and launchThe Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.[47] He also worked with seniorGeorge W. Bush administration officials to develop the PEPFAR program to fightHIV/AIDS and the PMI to fight malaria. On Annan's behalf, from 2002 to 2006 he chaired theUN Millennium Project, which was tasked with developing a concrete action plan to achieve the MDGs. The UN General Assembly adopted the UN Millennium Project's key recommendations at a special session in 2005.
Sachs was previously a special adviser to UN Secretary-GeneralAntónio Guterres.[10][11] In his capacity as a special adviser at the UN, Sachs has frequently met with foreign dignitaries and heads of state. He developed a friendship withBono andAngelina Jolie, who traveled to Africa with him to witness the progress of the Millennium Villages.[41]
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During theGreek government-debt crisis in 2015, Sachs,Heiner Flassbeck,Thomas Piketty,Dani Rodrik, andSimon Wren-Lewis published an open letter to Chancellor of GermanyAngela Merkel urging her to rethink her government's policy of austerity.[48]
Sachs is one of the founders of theDeep Decarbonization Pathways Project.[49]
In June 2025, Sachs attended theForum of the Future 2050 inMoscow, a conference organised byKonstantin Malofeev.[50][51]
In 2012 Sachs said thatnuclear power is the only solution toclimate change. In 2021, he suggested thatcarbon neutrality could be achieved without nuclear power by mid-century if rapid technological development continues.[52][53]
According to Stuart Lau and Luanna Muniz writing inPolitico, Sachs is a "longtime advocate of dismantling American hegemony and embracing the rise of China."[54] He said the term "genocide" is mistaken in relation to thepersecution of the Uyghurs in China.[27] He has argued for closer relations between the US and China and warned of the danger of tensions between them.[55][56]
Sachs has said that the United States is "complicit inIsraeli genocide" and could halt the conflict by freezing military aid to Israel.[57]
In a video clip shared by Donald Trump, Sachs criticized what he called Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu’s "obsessive" efforts to drag the United States intowar with Iran through pro-Israel lobbying.[58]
A 2019 report by Sachs andMark Weisbrot, published by theCenter for Economic and Policy Research, states that a 31% rise in the number of deaths between 2017 and 2018 was due to thesanctions imposed on Venezuela in 2017 and that 40,000 people in Venezuela may have died as a result.[59] The report states: "The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports."[59] Weisbrot said 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."[59]
AUnited States Department of State spokesperson said, "as the writers themselves concede, the report is based on speculation and conjecture."[59]Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard economist who was adviser to then Venezuelan opposition leaderJuan Guaidó, said the analysis was flawed because it made invalid assumptions about Venezuela based on Colombia: "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", Hausmann also said the analysis failed to rule out other explanations or correctly account forPDVSA finances.[60]
Early in theCOVID-19 pandemic, Sachs said theCOVID-19 lab leak theory, which posited theSARS-CoV-2 virus was released from a Chinese laboratory, was "reckless and dangerous," and said that right-wing politicians pointing fingers at theWuhan 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 ofThe Lancet, appointed Sachs as chair of itsCOVID-19 Commission, whose goals were to provide recommendations for public health policy and improve the practice of medicine.[61][62][63] Sachs set up a number of task forces, including one on theorigins of the virus. Sachs appointed British American disease ecologistPeter Daszak, a colleague of Sachs's 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] Sachs later came to believe that Daszak had a conflict of interest due to his connections to the Wuhan lab and the nature of the lab's research.Richard Ebright, chemical biologist atRutgers University, called the commission an "entirelyPotemkin commission" in the conservativeNational Review. As Sachs became increasingly drawn to the lab leak theory, he came into conflict with Daszak and his task force. Daszak left as chair of the taskforce in June 2021 and Sachs disbanded 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 U.S. lab biotechnology, which is considered by theEuropean Union to beCOVID-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."[64]
In August 2022, Sachs appeared on the podcast ofRobert F. Kennedy Jr. where he said that officials such asAnthony Fauci were not being honest about the origins of COVID.[65] In September 2022, the Lancet commission published a wide-ranging report on the pandemic, stating that the origins of the virus remain unknown. "There are two leading hypotheses: that the virus emerged as a zoonotic spillover from wildlife or a farm animal, possibly through a wet market, in a location that is still undetermined; or that the virus emerged from a research-related incident, during the field collection of viruses or through a laboratory-associated escape. Commissioners held diverse views about the relative probabilities of the two explanations, and both possibilities require further scientific investigation."[66]
In May 2022, Sachs said that theRussian invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, would be hard to beat and that Finland's moves to joinNATO would undermine a negotiated peace: "All of this talk of defeating Russia, to my mind, is reckless."[67] In June 2022, he co-signed an open letter calling for a "ceasefire" in the war, questioning Western countries'continuing military support for Ukraine.[68]
Sachs has suggested that the U.S. was responsible for thesabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. In February 2023, he was invited by the Russian government to address theUnited Nations Security Council about the topic.[69][27]
In February 2025 Sachs delivered a speech at theEuropean Parliament, during an event titled 'The Geopolitics of Peace' hosted byBSW MEPMichael von der Schulenburg in which he urged Europe to break free from U.S. influence and chart its own foreign policy path.[72]
Sachs's policies for the global eradication of extreme poverty have been the subject of controversy.[73]Nina Munk, author of the 2013 bookThe Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, says that "sometimes good intentions have left people even worse off than before".[74][75] Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief atThe Globalist, andJames D. Bindenagel, a former U.S. ambassador, wrote that "In his books and articles, Jeff Sachs has done much to frame and popularize the language and thinking to push a sustainable development agenda on the world stage. That is an achievement in which he can rightfully take considerable pride".[76]
William Easterly, a professor of economics atNew York University, reviewedThe End of Poverty for theWashington Post, calling Sachs's poverty eradication plan "a sort ofGreat Leap Forward".[77] According to Easterly's cross-country statistical analysis in his bookThe 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/orcorruption.[78]
Commenting on Sachs's $120 million effort to aid Africa, American travel writer and novelistPaul Theroux says these temporary measures failed to create sustained improvements. Theroux focuses on a project in a sparsely populated community ofnomadic camel herders in Dertu,Kenya, funded by Sachs's Millennium Villages Project, which costUS$2.5 million over a three-year period. Theroux says that the project'slatrines 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."[79]
According to the Canadian journalistNaomi 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.[80]
In December 2018,Meng Wanzhou,Chief Financial Officer ofHuawei, was arrested in Canada at the request of the U.S., which was seeking her extradition to face charges of allegedly violatingsanctions 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 hisTwitter account, which had 260,000 followers.[81] Isaac Stone Fish, a senior fellow atAsia Society, wrote that Sachs had written a foreword to a Huaweiposition paper, and asked if Sachs had been paid by Huawei. Sachs said he had not been paid for the work.[81][82]
In June 2020, Sachs said the targeting of Huawei by the US was not solely about security.[83] In their 2020 bookHidden Hand,Clive Hamilton andMareike Ohlberg commented on one of Sachs's articles in which he said the U.S. government maligned Huawei under hypocritical pretenses. Hamilton and Ohlberg wrote that Sachs's 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 allege that Sachs has ties to a number of Chinese state bodies and the private energy corporationCEFC China Energy for which he has spoken.[84]
During a January 2021 interview, when questioned about China'srepression of Uyghur people, Sachs referred tohuman rights abuses committed by the U.S. and alluded to Jesus' parable ofThe Mote and the Beam.[85] Eighteen advocacy organizations jointly wrote a letter to Columbia University questioning Sachs's comments.[85] The letter's signatories wrote that Sachs took the same stance asChina'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.[85] Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief atThe Globalist, andJ.D. Bindenagel, a former U.S. ambassador, wrote that Sachs was "actively agitating(!) for a classic Communist propaganda ploy".[76]
In March 2023, a group of 340 economists published an open letter to "address some of the historical misrepresentations and logical fallacies" that they said were contained in Sach's arguments regarding theRusso-Ukrainian war.[13][14]
Sachs lives in New York City with his wife Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, a pediatrician. They have three children.[86][87][88]
In 2004 and 2005, Sachs was named one of the100 Most Influential People in the World byTime. He was also named one of the "500 Most Influential People in the Field of Foreign Policy" by theWorld Affairs Councils of America.[89]
In 1993, theNew York Times called Sachs "probably the most important economist in the world."[20]In 2005, Sachs received theSargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice. In 2007, he was awarded thePadma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor bestowed by thegovernment of India.[90] Also in 2007, he received the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution International Advocate for Peace Award and theCentennial Medal from theHarvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for his contributions to society.[19]
In 2007, Sachs received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, an award given out annually byJefferson Awards.[91]
From 2000 to 2001, Sachs was chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health[92] of theWorld Health Organization (WHO) and from 1999 to 2000 he was a member of theInternational Financial Institution Advisory Commission established by theUnited States Congress. Sachs has been an adviser to the WHO, theWorld Bank, theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, theInternational Monetary Fund, and theUnited Nations Development Program. He is a member of theInstitute of Medicine, theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences,Harvard Society of Fellows, the Fellows of the World Econometric Society, the Brookings Panel of Economists, theNational Bureau of Economic Research and the Board of Advisers of the Chinese Economists Society, among other international organizations.[19] 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 theUniversity of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2007–2009. He holds an honorary professorship at theUniversidad del Pacifico in Peru. He has lectured at theLondon School of Economics, theUniversity of Oxford andYale University and inTel Aviv University andJakarta.[19]
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 theNetherlands Development Organization's International Advisory Board.[93] In 2009,Princeton University'sAmerican Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Sachs theJames Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service.[94]
In 2016, Sachs became president of the Eastern Economic Association, succeedingJanet Currie.[95]
In 2017, Sachs and his wife were the joint recipients of the first World Sustainability Award.[96] In 2015, Sachs was awarded theBlue Planet Prize for his contributions to solving global environmental problems.[97]
In May 2017 Sachs was awarded theBoris Mints Institute Prize for Research of Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges.[98]
In 2022 Sachs was awarded theTang Prize in the category of sustainable development.[99]
Sachs writes a monthly foreign affairs column forProject Syndicate, a nonprofit association of newspapers that circulates in 145 countries.[100]
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Dr. Sachs helped start what is perhaps the most serious effort to draw up a detailed road map for the energy transition: the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, based in Paris and New York. Over the past couple of years, the effort enlisted teams from 16 countries, which account for the large majority of global emissions, to devise such plans.
About a year ago, Sachs named Ruhiira a "Millennium Village," one of 79 villages in 10 African countries where his controversial theories on ending extreme poverty are being tested
Sachs, Theodore, Beloved husband of Joan. Dear father of Andrea Sachs, Jeffrey (Dr. Sonia Ehrlich) Sachs. Grandmother of Lisa, Adam and Hannah Sachs. Brother of the late Maurice Sachs, the late Sidney Sachs, the late Sol Sachs, and the late Freda Handelsman. Brother-in-law of Dr. Gerald and Gloria Abrams, Mary Sachs.
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