Coming Monday: Wiliam Easterly on Foreign Aid
by The Editors
March 31st, 2006
Tune in Monday for the launch of the April edition of Cato Unbound: “What Can Foreign Aid Do For the World’s Poor? ”
William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University and former World Bank economist, will kick off the conversation with an essay based on his new book, White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, which asks:
After $2.3 trillion over 5 decades, why are the desperate needs of the world’s poor still so tragically unmet? Isn’t it finally time for an end to the impunity of foreign aid?
As usual, over the course of the cooming week, a world-class lineup of experts will comment:
* Branko Milanovic, Lead Economist of the World Bank research group and visiting professor at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
* Deepak Lal, James S. Coleman Professor of International Development Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and author of The Poverty of “Development Economics”.
* Steve Radelet, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and co-author of The Other War: Global Poverty and the Millennium Challenge Account and Economics of Development.
When Angelina Jolie appears on MTV trekking across Africa with a world-famous devlopment economist and Bono makes it to the cover of Time for his work on behalf of the world’s poor, you can be sure that the issue of world poverty isn’t just for wonks any more. Wealthy citizens of wealthy countries seem to increasingly recognize the gulf between them and the rest of the world. But what, if anything, can the wealthy people of the world do that will really help? Billions upon billions have been spent by governments and institutions like the World Bank over the last half-century to launch less developed countries onto a trajectory of growth. Yet despite all this money—or perhaps because of it—many countries continue to languish in abject poverty. Do we need to spend even more, faster? Or have development efforts misunderstood the deeper causes of growth? How important are political and social institutions to the effectiveness of aid? And how important are intangibles like culture, belief systems, and human capital? Are there underappreciated opportunities for aid that we should hear from Ms. Jolie’s bee-stung lips and that Bono ought to be singing from the rooftops?
Keep checking Cato Unbound over the next two weeks to find out!
