About Aid Watch
The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University's Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, author of "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," and Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.” - H.L. Mencken
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Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Rebecca Burlingame on Be Careful What You Export: Oh so true that there are many things the developing world does not want from the...
- Tom on Be Careful What You Export: And that is without even thinking of the material dimension of institutional or organisational...
- Tim on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: Check out who is “Art Keys and Associates” and you will understand how...
- skeptic on Statement from CARE on Bruckner FOIA Request: Umm, why don’t they just release it themselves instead of asking USAID to...
- Andy on Be Careful What You Export: Very true, the lock-in nature of path dependent choices and the increasing returns these paths...
- Debrah Prada on Be Careful What You Export: I hope everyone GOVERNMENT could read this. Very well said.
Archives
Bill Easterly tweets
- Dear Aid Watchers, Laura and I are gone for a week, Adam Martin is Guest Editor, starting with today's great post http://bit.ly/ces1l3 02:12:45 PM August 30, 2010 from bitly
- Have a happy Last Week of the Summer 01:52:50 PM August 30, 2010 from web
- Beloved tweeps: I am going off line for a week in a last-ditch effort to regain my sanity, no more tweets from me till after Labor Day. 01:52:30 PM August 30, 2010 from web
- What to learn from those wacky animal-shaped Sudanese urban plans: rich country urban planners are just as wacky http://bit.ly/ces1l3 01:50:42 PM August 30, 2010 from bitly
Aid Watch tweets
- Be Careful What you Export: http://bit.ly/cE3e1v about 12 hours ago from web
- TransparencyBrawl 2010 continues: http://bit.ly/aG1ytu 08:18:35 PM September 01, 2010 from web
- Hayek vs. the Intellectuals, in technicolor! http://bit.ly/cSnS8m 11:25:39 AM September 01, 2010 from web
- Guest blog by Ben Powell on how to help the poor, just in time for going back to school: http://bit.ly/9pQfhi. 11:18:38 AM August 31, 2010 from web
Author Archives: William Easterly
Media now cares about Pakistan; aid workers’ surprising lack of confidence in Afghan army protection; North Korean jeans
Now abundant coverage of Pakistan flood, is it making up for previous non-story?
Sorry, Karzai, Aid workers do want to keep their own guards in Afghanistan, as compared to corrupt and incompetent offical Afghan forces.
I always argue that comparative advantage is surprising, but even so was caught off guard by newly fashionable North Korean jeans.
Posted in Uncategorized
4 Comments
Did Gates and Buffett do more good as businessmen than as philanthropists?
Provocative case for “yes” in today’s Wall Street Journal (gated link), by Kimberley Dennis, President of Searle Freedom Trust:
Wealthy businessmen often feel obligated to ‘give back.’ Who says they’ve taken anything?
Full disclosure: DRI benefits from post-docs indirectly funded by the Searle Foundation.
Posted in Uncategorized
7 Comments
Chinatown
Many do not realize that New York’s thriving Chinatown is a suprisingly recent phenomenon. Even during America’s open immigration years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese were not welcome. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 formalized ugly prejudice.
New York’s Chinatown stayed very small, surrounded in the early 20th century by Italian and Jewish immigrants.
Even as late as 1950, Chinatown was small.
Chinese Exclusion stayed in effect de facto…
Why can’t leading conservative magazine understand freedom?
Found this mysterious transmission on a robot named R2D2 Twitter from joshuafoust: ”National Review Online endorses authoritarian capitalism. Help us, Obi Wan @bill_easterly, you’re our only hope!”
I won’t let you down, Leia&Luke AKA @joshuafoust… The bizarre article in question is titled China Teaches the U.S. Lessons about Economic Freedom. The argument seems roughly to be that China’s rapid growth is explained by its positive change in economic freedom after 1978. Throw in…
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9 Comments
Rodrik on The Myth of Authoritarian Growth
I really agree with Dani’s great article on this (HT Chris Blattman).
When we look at systematic historical evidence… we find that authoritarianism buys little in terms of economic growth. For every authoritarian country that has managed to grow rapidly, there are several that have floundered. For every Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, there are many like Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo.
Democracies … provide much greater economic stability, measured by the ups
…
18th century wetbacks
Update: see end of post
Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. (
…
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11 Comments
Manhattan’s Non-Market Economy
Tyler Cowen has a great NYT column today about the harmful distortions caused by “free” parking.
Manhattan offers plenty more ammunition to his case. Both sides of most crosstown numbered streets (17th, 18th, etc.) are devoted to “free” parking, which adds to traffic gridlock by creating one-lane streets, frequently blocked by delivery vans or by stopped taxis. Those using those “free” slots have to expend a lot of effort to keep moving their cars…
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8 Comments
The Fall of The Southern Elite
The Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. was the playground of the old Planter Class in the Old South, going all the way back to Robert E. Lee. The NYT travel section describes how it has fallen on hard times, just as the Old White Elite in the South is not quite what it once was.
The Greenbrier’s aristocratic visitors, waited upon hand and foot by liveried Negro waiters, were never that popular with…
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5 Comments
Wonderful graph on global population by latitude and longitude
HT (i.e. stolen from) Chris Blattman
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10 Comments




