Hernando de Soto Polar

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Hernando de Soto Polar bigraphy, stories - Peruvian economist

Hernando de Soto Polar : biography

3 June 1941 –

Hernando de Soto Polar (or Hernando de Soto; born 1941) is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy and on the importance of business and property rights. He is the president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), located in Lima, Peru. (accessed 16 March 2013)

Praise for work

Time magazine chose de Soto as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century in its special May 1999 issue Leaders of the New Millennium, and included him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004. De Soto was also listed as one of the 15 innovators "who will reinvent your future" according to Forbes magazine’s 85th anniversary edition. In January 2000, Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, the German development magazine, described de Soto as one of the most important development theoreticians. In October 2005, over 20,000 readers of Prospect magazine of the UK and Foreign Policy magazine of the U.S. ranked him as number 13 on the magazines’ joint survey of the world’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll.

U.S. presidents from both major parties have praised de Soto’s work. Bill Clinton, for example, called him "The world’s greatest living economist", George H. W. Bush declared that "De Soto’s prescription offers a clear and promising alternative to economic stagnation…"Source for President George H. W. Bush’s remarks: Text of Remarks by the President to the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meeting, 27 September 1989, announcing NAFTA. Press release. Bush’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan said, "De Soto and his colleagues have examined the only ladder for upward mobility. The free market is the other path to development and the one true path. It is the people’s path… it leads somewhere. It works." His work has also received praise from two United Nations Secretaries-General Kofi Annan—"Hernando de Soto is absolutely right, that we need to rethink how we capture economic growth and development"—and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar—"A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world."

Prizes

Among the prizes he has received are:

  • The Freedom Prize (Switzerland)
  • The Fisher Prize (United Kingdom)
  • 2002
    • the Goldwater Award (USA)
    • Adam Smith Award from the Association of Private Enterprise Education (USA)
    • The CARE Canada Award for Outstanding Development Thinking (Canada)
  • 2003
    • received the Downey Fellowship at Yale University
    • the Democracy Hall of Fame International Award from the National Graduate University (USA)
  • 2004
    • the Templeton Freedom Prize (USA)
    • the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty (USA)
    • the Royal Decoration of the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn, 5th Class, (Thailand)
  • 2005
    • an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Buckingham (United Kingdom),
    • The Americas Award (USA)
    • named the Most Outstanding of 2004 for Economic Development at Home and Abroad by the Peruvian National Assembly of Rectors
    • received the Prize of Deutsche Stiftung Eigentum for exceptional contributions to the theory of property rights
    • the 2004 IPAE Award by the Peruvian Institute of Business Administration
    • the Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award 2005 (USA) in tribute to his outstanding accomplishments
    • the BearingPoint, Forbes Magazine’s seventh Compass Award for Strategic Direction
    • was named as a "Fellow of the Class of 1930" by Dartmouth College.
  • 2006
    • the 2006 Bradley Prize for outstanding achievement by the Bradley Foundation.
    • the 2006 Innovation Award (Social and Economic Innovation) from The Economist magazine (December 2, 2006) for the promotion of property rights and economic development.
  • 2007
    • The Poder BCG Business Awards 2007, granted by Poder Magazine and the Boston Consulting Group, for the "Best Anti-Poverty Initiative"
    • the anthology Die Zwölf Wichtigsten Ökonomen der Welt (The World’s Twelve Most Influential Economists, 2007), included a profile of de Soto among a list that begins with Adam Smith and includes such recent winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics as Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.
    • the 2007 Humanitarian Award in recognition of his work to help poor people participate in the market economy.
  • 2009
    • Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College (Ireland) for having excelled in public life and made a worthy contribution to society.
    • the inaugural Hernando de Soto Award for Democracy awarded by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in recognition of his extraordinary achievements in furthering economic freedom in Peru and throughout the developing world.
  • 2010
    • the Hayek Medal for his theories on liberal development policy ("market economy from below") and for the appropriate implementation of his concepts by two Peruvian presidents.
    • the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Cabinet (Council of Ministers) in recognition of his contribution toward the betterment of humankind and having worked for the future of the earth through his commitment.