Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts

of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org

where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to

other information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd

love to hear from you. My guest today is William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York

University, an author of the White man's burden, and the elusive quest for growth. Bill,

welcome to Econ Talk. Thanks, Russ. It's great to be here. Our topic for today's economic development

for an aid, poverty, the subjects of both of your books. In the beginning of the White man's burden,

you argue that the West has spent a mere $2.3 trillion over the last 60 years in the hopes of

ending poverty and creating growth. How are we doing? Not too well. This is really one of the great

tragedies of our generation is that all this goodwill and all these financial resources where we're

out there for the cause of trying to help the world's poorest and most desperate people,

and yet all the evidence that has accumulated over 50 years is that very little of it actually

reached the poor. Let me just give you one example of that. Of that amount, nearly $600

billion of that went into Africa. Africa is the most aid-intensive continent, and economic

growth per person in Africa has been zero over that whole period. That is the standard of living of

the average African is no higher today than it was 50 years ago despite this massive aid effort.

Clearly, it's a sign that all that aid money was not reaching the poor. Why didn't it get there?

Where did it go and what were the expectations of where it would go and why weren't those

expectations, Matt? Well, let's talk about the why first. I think one really unique thing about

aid is that there is no way for the intended beneficiaries, the people who are trying to help,

to give any feedback on whether it's working for them or not, whether the money is reaching them

...