An evening with Andres Velasco, 3 Oct 2025, New Delhi
On Friday, 3 October 2025, I was invited to an exclusive interaction with Andres Velasco — economist, former Finance Minister of Chile and Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has co-edited The London Consensus: Economic Principles For The 21st Century. It is forthcoming by the LSE Press. It was a select gathering, by invitation only, that included journalists (international and national), policy makers, lawyers, and academics. The discussion that ensued was fascinating. With the gracious consent of the hosts, I was accompanied by my daughter, who heard the conversation in wide-eyed wonder. Her eyes were twinkling with excitement listening to Andres Velasco’s speech and the discussion that ensued. She was the only teenager in the room and as someone rather dismissively said to her “Oh, you are the kid”. Well, this kid witnessed a good discussion and took back some of it with her to mull over. She enjoyed her 1:1 conversation with Anders Velasco who did not talk down to her and instead heard her out. He was in full agreement with my parenting of taking children everywhere as he does the same with his. His parents did the same. My parents did the same. This is how childhood memories are created and over a period of time when these kids become adults, they will learn to connect dots and build upon what they were taught.
Book blurb
A generation ago, the so-called Washington Consensus laid out a series of dos and don’ts for policymakers around the world. Today, that vision is recognised as having fallen short in a number of ways – particularly in its neglect of the social and institutional factors that are indispensable for achieving sustained growth and for building fairer and more cohesive societies.
The immense challenges humanity faces are easy to list: climate change, pandemics, social inequalities, the far-reaching effects of the tech revolution and AI, a fragmenting world economy, and a wave of populism and political polarisation that has undermined support for liberal democracy in many countries. It is much harder to identify a set of new ideas – and policies – that will solve these seemingly intractable global problems.
In this new world, political leaders and policymakers need guidance and principles that can assist when choosing among policy alternatives. To this end, the editors of this volume convened over 50 of the world’s leading economists and policy experts at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century is the result of these exchanges. It is not intended as a one-size-fits-all set of economic remedies, but an exercise in assembling the best available evidence and ideas to foster dialogue, and ultimately to develop a set of principles that can address the urgent political, social and economic tasks ahead.
For more on the London Consensus project, see: https://www.lse.ac.uk/school-of-public-policy/Research/London-Consensus
Publication date: 16 Oct 2025
12 Oct 2025
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