Reinventing Foreign Aid

by William R. Easterly

Overview

Top experts in the field discuss how to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid, proposing practical solutions to specific problems rather than a utopian master plan.

The urgency of reducing poverty in the developing world has been the subject of a public campaign by such unlikely policy experts as George Clooney, Alicia Keyes, Elton John, Angelina Jolie, and Bono. And yet accompanying the call for more foreign aid is an almost universal discontent with the effectiveness of the existing aid system. In Reinventing Foreign Aid , development expert William Easterly has gathered top scholars in the field to discuss how to improve foreign aid. These authors, Easterly points out, are not claiming that their ideas will (to invoke a current slogan) Make Poverty History. Rather, they take on specific problems and propose some hard-headed solutions. Easterly himself, in an expansive and impassioned introductory chapter, makes a case for the “searchers”—who explore solutions by trial and error and learn from feedback—over the “planners”—who throw an endless supply of resources at a big goal—as the most likely to reduce poverty. Other writers look at scientific evaluation of aid projects (including randomized trials) and describe projects found to be cost-effective, including vaccine delivery and HIV education; consider how to deal with the government of the recipient state (work through it or bypass a possibly dysfunctional government?); examine the roles of the International Monetary Fund (a de-facto aid provider) and the World Bank; and analyze some new and innovative proposals for distributing aid.

Contributors
Abhijit Banerjee, Nancy Birdsall, Craig Burnside, Esther Duflo, Domenico Fanizza, William Easterly, Ruimin He, Kurt Hoffman, Stephen Knack, Michael Kremer, Mari Kuraishi, Ruth Levine, Bertin Martens, John McMillan, Edward Miguel, Jonathan Morduch, Todd Moss, Gunilla Pettersson, Lant Pritchett, Steven Radelet, Aminur Rahman, Ritva Reinikka, Jakob Svensson, Nicolas van de Walle, James Vreeland, Dennis Whittle, Michael Woolcock

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262550666
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	05/09/2008
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	584
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Easterly is the author of The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT Press, 2001) and The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. He is Professor of Economics at New York University (Joint with Africa House), Codirector of NYU's Development Research Institute, visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Nonresident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.

William Easterly is the author of The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT Press, 2001) and The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. He is Professor of Economics at New York University (Joint with Africa House), Codirector of NYU's Development Research Institute, visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Nonresident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is the Ford Foundation Professor of Economics in the department of economics at MIT, a director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT, and a past president of the Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD).

Michael is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Michael is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Edward Miguel, coauthor with Raymond Fisman of Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations, is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Center of Evalulations for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jonathan Morduch is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He is the coauthor of The Economics of Microfinance (MIT Press) and Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day.

Michael is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.

What People are Saying About This

Holger Wolf

"Enhancing aid effectiveness requires a holistic approach. This outstanding book provides rich food for thought, with expert contributions spanning the range from evaluation to institutional design and new approaches in providing aid. A must-read for all scholars and practitioners interested in making aid work."--Holger Wolf, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Christopher Scott

"This book is topical, academically rigorous, and wide ranging. A high quality collection!"--Christopher Scott, London School of Economics

Endorsement

It is ironic that, at a time when aid flows to the poorest countries of the world are reaching unprecedented scale, and when the challenge of generating resources to fight world poverty is receiving unprecedented publicattention, the question of what actually works in making aid effective hasbecome extremely controversial. Fortunately, a new generation of development researchers has turned its attention to this question, bringing to bear a variety of innovative and refreshingly convincing new empirical techniques. This volume edited by William Easterly brings together contributions from many of the leading lights in this field, providing a rich menu of perspectives not only on what has been learned through this newwork, but also on how much remains to be learned. It is an accessible must-read not only for students and academics, but more importantly for those in the policy world who will participate in making the critical decisions on how aid will be administered, as well as for the citizens who will hold them accountable for those decisions.

—Peter J. Montiel, Fred Greene Third Century Professor of Political Economy, Williams College

From the Publisher

This book is topical, academically rigorous, and wide ranging. A high quality collection!

—Christopher Scott, London School of Economics

Enhancing aid effectiveness requires a holistic approach.This outstanding book provides rich food for thought, with expert contributions spanning the range from evaluation to institutional design and new approaches in providing aid. A must-read for all scholars and practitioners interested in making aid work.

—Holger Wolf, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

It is ironic that, at a time when aid flows to the poorest countries of the world are reaching unprecedented scale, and when the challenge of generating resources to fight world poverty is receiving unprecedented publicattention, the question of what actually works in making aid effective hasbecome extremely controversial. Fortunately, a new generation of development researchers has turned its attention to this question, bringing to bear a variety of innovative and refreshingly convincing new empirical techniques. This volume edited by William Easterly brings together contributions from many of the leading lights in this field, providing a rich menu of perspectives not only on what has been learned through this newwork, but also on how much remains to be learned. It is an accessible must-read not only for students and academics, but more importantly for those in the policy world who will participate in making the critical decisions on how aid will be administered, as well as for the citizens who will hold them accountable for those decisions.

—Peter J. Montiel, Fred Greene Third Century Professor of Political Economy, Williams College

Peter J. Montiel

"It is ironic that, at a time when aid flows to the poorest countries of theworld are reaching unprecedented scale, and when the challenge of generatingresources to fight world poverty is receiving unprecedented publicattention, the question of what actually works in making aid effective hasbecome extremely controversial. Fortunately, a new generation ofdevelopment researchers has turned its attention to this question, bringingto bear a variety of innovative and refreshingly convincing new empiricaltechniques. This volume edited by William Easterly brings togethercontributions from many of the leading lights in this field, providing arich menu of perspectives not only on what has been learned through this newwork, but also on how much remains to be learned. It is an accessiblemust-read not only for students and academics, but more importantly forthose in the policy world who will participate in making the criticaldecisions on how aid will be administered, as well as for the citizens whowill hold them accountable for those decisions."--Peter Montiel, Fred Greene Third Century Professor of Political Economy, Williams College