CAMBRIDGE – When I was in Chile earlier this month, I was impressed by the contrast between the palpable success of its long-standing free-market policies and the current agenda of its leftist president, Michelle Bachelet. How this contrast is resolved will be important not only to the country’s more than 17 million people, but also to everyone who regards Chile as a model of what sound economic policies have been able to achieve.

India’s recent general election could be the most important positive economic event of 2014. Indian voters decisively rejected the Congress party, which had governed India virtually without interruption since it gained independence from Britain in 1947. They are likely to be happy they did.