El Espejismo de la Eficiencia Económica
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52195/pm.v3i1.348Abstract
There is an international growing consensus about the need of promoting economic efficiency as the yardstick of modern economic policymaking, especially in the promotion of market transition in de-veloping countries. This essay objects the supporting premises of such assumption. It exposes why economic efficiency represents a normative criterion for the assignment of social resources which undermines markets’ creative functioning. Given the utopian founding premises within which such social welfare cost-benefit analysis is built, its enforcement cannot be meaningfully applied to judge entrepreneurs’ market conduct. Economic efficiency leaves aside all connection with the creative evolutionary dynamics of markets. Because of this, it diverts the attention of regulatory authorities into policy problems which are irrelevant, even counterproductive, for the promotion of free markets. By applying market process ideas expounded by F.A. Hayek, I. Kirzner and G.B.Richardson, this essay shows that invest-ment promotion, which is the very foundation of economic growth, is linked to entrepreneurs’ seizure of useful information which they need to under-take their investments. This essay shows how competition policies, by grounding their views in a structural and static vision of markets, end up distorting their very policy purpose.
Key words: Economic efficiency, public policies.
Clasificación JEL: B53, D61, D83, D84
Resumen: Existe un consenso internacional creciente acerca de la nece-sidad de impulsar la eficiencia económica como principio rector de la for-mulación de políticas públicas en el campo económico, especialmente para promover la transición de las economías de países en desarrollo hacia los mercados. Este ensayo objeta las premisas intelectuales que sus-tentan esa creencia, y expone por qué la eficiencia económica representa un criterio normativo de asignación de los recursos sociales que obsta-culiza el proceso creador de los mercados. Dadas las condiciones utó-picas bajo las cuales se construye dicho cálculo de coste-beneficio de bie-nestar social, no es posible su aplicación normativa para juzgar la conducta de los empresarios en los mercados. La eficiencia económica deja de lado todo contacto con la dinámica evolutiva, renovadora y creadora de los mercados. Por ello, distrae la atención del regulador hacia problemas irre-levantes para la promoción del libre mercado. Empleando las ideas de proceso de mercado de F.A. Hayek, I. Kirzner y G.B.Richardson, este ensayo muestra que el desarrollo de inversiones en los mercados, base del crecimiento económico, está ligado a que los empresarios obtengan la información útil que necesitan para hacer inversiones. Se muestra de qué manera las políticas de competencia, al fundarse en una visión epis-temológica estructural y estática de los mercados, terminan por distor-sionar su propia finalidad de políticas públicas.
Palabras clave: Eficiencia económica, políticas públicas.
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