When Is Aid Not Aid?
11 January 2007
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
David Wessel nicely surveys economists' current thinking on why so many "developing" countries aren't developing ("Why Economists Are Still Grasping for Cure to Global Poverty," Jan. 11). But he misses one crucial element: the finding - endorsed by many scholars who've examined the data - that development has been hamstrung by so-called "foreign aid" and the anti-market, western-elites-know-best mindset that accompanies it.
As the late Peter Bauer observed after decades of close study of poor countries, "Development aid is . . . not necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty. Indeed, it is far more likely to keep them in that state."
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
David Wessel nicely surveys economists' current thinking on why so many "developing" countries aren't developing ("Why Economists Are Still Grasping for Cure to Global Poverty," Jan. 11). But he misses one crucial element: the finding - endorsed by many scholars who've examined the data - that development has been hamstrung by so-called "foreign aid" and the anti-market, western-elites-know-best mindset that accompanies it.
As the late Peter Bauer observed after decades of close study of poor countries, "Development aid is . . . not necessary to rescue poor societies from a vicious circle of poverty. Indeed, it is far more likely to keep them in that state."
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Tuesday September 25, 2007 at 7:18am