William Easterly – författare

We are all aware of the extreme hunger and poverty that afflict the world's poor. We hear the facts, see the images on television, buy the T-shirt and are moved as individuals and governments to dig deep into our pockets. Yet what happens to all this aid? Why after 50 years and $2.3 trillion are there still children dying for lack of twelve cents medicine? Why are there so many people still living on less than $1 a day without clean water, food, sanitation, shelter, education or medicine?In The White Man's Burden William Easterly, acclaimed author and former economist at the World Bank, addresses these twin tragedies head on. While recognising the energy and compassion behind the campaign to make poverty history he argues urgently and powerfully that grand plans and good intentions are a part of the problem not the solution. Giving aid is not enough, we must ensure that it reaches the people who need it most and the only way to make this happens is through accountability and by learning from past experiences. Without claiming to have all the answers, William Easterly chastises the complacent and patronising attitude of the West that attempts to impose solutions from above. In this book, which is by turns angry, moving, irreverent but always rigorous, he calls on each and everyone of us to take responsibility, whether donors, aid workers or ordinary citizens, so that more aid reaches the people it is supposed to help, the mother who cannot feed her children, the little girl who has to collect firewood rather than go to school, the father who cannot work because he has been crippled by war.

Foreign aid and overseas military intervention have been important and controversial political topics for over a decade. The government's controversial target to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on foreign aid has been widely welcomed by some, but strongly criticised by others. Furthermore, the controversy of the Iraq war rumbles on, even today. This is all happening amongst much instability in many parts of the world. In this short book, a number of authors challenge the assumption that we can bring about economic development and promote liberal democracies through direct foreign intervention - whether economic or military intervention. The lead author, William Easterly, drawing on his wide experience at the World Bank and as an academic, is a renowned sceptic of intervention. He points out that solutions proposed now to the problem of poverty are identical to solutions proposed decades ago - but the plans of rich governments simply do not successfully transform poor countries. Academics Abigail Hall-Blanco and Christian Bjornskov add further context and put forward empirical evidence that backs up Easterly's argument.Syvlie Aboa-Bradwell draws upon her own practical experience to give examples of how people in poor countries can be assisted to promote their own development. This book is essential reading for students, teachers and all interested in better understanding how to help - and how not to help - the world's most disadvantaged peoples.

Latin America's macroeconomic crises of the 1980s and '90s forced a severe fiscal adjustment across the region. More often than not, fiscal stability was achieved at the cost of a drastic compression of public infrastructure spending, accompanied by the hope that the private sector would take the leading role in infrastructure provision. This book documents the major trends in infrastructure provision in Latin America over the past two decades n order to assess the consequences of this changed public-private partnership from the perspective of economic growth, public finances, and the quantity and quality of infrastructure services. It will be of particular interest to those in the fields of infrastructure, fiscal policy, and economic growth, and anyone concerned with Latin America's development. For orders originating outside of North America, please visit the World Bank website for a list of distributors and geographic discounts at http://publications.worldbank.org/howtoorder or e-mail pubdistributors@worldbank.org.

What Works in Development? brings together leading experts to address one of the most basic yet vexing issues in development: what do we really know about what works— and what doesn't—in fighting global poverty?The contributors, including many of the world's most respected economic development analysts, focus on the ongoing debate over which paths to development truly maximize results. Should we emphasize a big-picture approach—focusing on the role of institutions, macroeconomic policies, growth strategies, and other country-level factors? Or is a more grassroots approach the way to go, with the focus on particular microeconomic interventions such as conditional cash transfers, bed nets, and other microlevel improvements in service delivery on the ground? The book attempts to find a consensus on which approach is likely to be more effective.Contributors include Nana Ashraf (Harvard Business School), Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Nancy Birdsall (Center for Global Development), Anne Case (Princeton University), Jessica Cohen (Brookings),William Easterly (NYU and Brookings),Alaka Halla (Innovations for Poverty Action), Ricardo Hausman (Harvard University), Simon Johnson (MIT), Peter Klenow (Stanford University), Michael Kremer (Harvard), Ross Levine (Brown University), Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard), Ben Olken (MIT), Lant Pritchett (Harvard), Martin Ravallion (World Bank), Dani Rodrik (Harvard), Paul Romer (Stanford University), and DavidWeil (Brown).

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'AN INNOVATIVE AND EXHILARATING READ' Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in EconomicsEconomic development is not really development without consent.For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed 'Rest' in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by thealleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But they overlooked the demand for self-determination - and not just relief from poverty.Renowned economist and author of The White Man's Burden William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provide equal rights as well as prosperity. Tracing the economic ideas underpinning the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how it is the surge in global trade that has given agency to billions of people for the first time.Asserting a new and urgent perspective on global economics, Violent Saviours shows that the demands for consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty.

'AN INNOVATIVE AND EXHILARATING READ' Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in EconomicsEconomic development is not really development without consent.For centuries, the developed Western world has exploited the less-developed 'Rest' in the name of progress, conquering the Americas, driving the Atlantic slave trade, and colonizing Africa and Asia. Throughout, the West has justified this global conquest by thealleged material gains it brought to the conquered. But they overlooked the demand for self-determination - and not just relief from poverty.Renowned economist and author of The White Man's Burden William Easterly examines how the demand for agency has always been at the heart of debates on development. Spanning four centuries of global history, Easterly argues that commerce, rather than conquest, provide equal rights as well as prosperity. Tracing the economic ideas underpinning the long debate between conquest and commerce, Easterly shows how it is the surge in global trade that has given agency to billions of people for the first time.Asserting a new and urgent perspective on global economics, Violent Saviours shows that the demands for consent, dignity and respect must be at the centre of the global fight against poverty.

In The Tyranny of Experts, renowned economist William Easterly uncovers our failing efforts to fight global poverty. The expert approved, top-down approach to development has not only made little lasting progress, but has proven a convenient rationale for generations of human rights violations perpetrated by colonialists, post-colonial dictators, and US foreign policymakers. Easterly presents a devastating critique of the blighted record of authoritarian development, demonstrating how traditional anti-poverty tactics have both trampled the freedom of the world's poor and suppressed a vital debate about alternative approaches to solving global poverty. Although relief agencies, such as the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, are still regarded as both well-meaning and effective, they're founded on the mistaken belief that wise technocrats from the West will be the saviors of helpless victims from the Rest. They too often support dictators, hoping that economic development will lead naturally to democracy.In this revised edition, Easterly brings in new research that update his masterful critiques for the present. He reveals the fundamental errors inherent in the long-celebrated top-down approach, and offers a new model for Western relief agencies and developing countries alike: a model that, because it is predicated on respect for the rights of poor people, has the power to end global poverty once and for all.