Raghuram Rajan is the chief economist for the IMF. Like his former U Chicago colleague and co-author Randy Kroszner, Rajan is in his early 40s and a professed classical liberal. Rajan recently gave a speech criticizing US moves to block foreign direct investment in the US, while defending the IMF as a liberalizing force. Kroszner chaired the session but did not comment.

Here’s an interesting interview with Rajan on how to reform economic policy in India. Money quote:

What the Left is against is monopoly capital. That is also what the liberals — people like me — are against. We are against monopoly. But we argue the statist economy almost invariably creates monopoly capital. The licence raj creates privileged industrialists, who occupy the commanding heights of the economy along with the public sector. It creates privileged workers who occupy privileged positions while the real work is done by the unorganised labour. So the point is, privilege is created by restrictions on competition. What we are striving for is a far more competitive structure which creates opportunity. So what you want is to strive for equality of access — to the market, education, capital.

ADDENDUM: Rajan certaintly seems prone to wishful thinking about the results of dirigiste policies than, say, the young Stanley Fischer. But will having a free-marketeer as the IMF's chief economist actually turn the IMF from a negative to a positive force for economic freedom? I'm skeptical.