The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 22 March 2006
• Author: Loungani, Prakash
• Published date: 22 March 2006
• Author: Loungani, Prakash

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good William Easterly New York: The Penguin Press, 2006, 436 pp.

In 1982, Peter Bauer coauthored an article with the title "Foreign Aid Isn't." This title could serve as an apt summary of William Easterly's new book.

Easterly, an economics professor at New York University and formerly a senior research economist at the World Bank, argues that foreign aid is neither necessary nor sufficient to raise living standards in developing countries. It is not necessary because several countries have been able to raise standards without a big aid-financed push--Korea is an obvious example. And it is far from sufficient because many countries have remained mired in poverty despite receiving substantial foreign aid. "The typical country in Africa," Easterly writes, "received more than 15 percent of its income from foreign donors in the 1990s," but that "surge in aid was not successful in reversing or halting the slide in growth of income per capita toward zero" (p. 45). Easterly suggests that the lack of growth in many developing countries is due to bad government, not to inadequate foreign aid. "One gut instinct that many people have about the poverty of nations is probably close to the target: it's all...