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The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (The MIT Press) Paperback – 2 August 2002

by William R. Easterly (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 111 ratings
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Why economists' attempts to help poorer countries improve their economic well-being have failed.

Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work.

In this book Easterly shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people—private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors—respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. Written in an accessible, at times irreverent, style, Easterly's book combines modern growth theory with anecdotes from his fieldwork for the World Bank.

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  1. Print length
    360 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    MIT Press
  4. Publication date
    2 August 2002
  5. Dimensions
    15.39 x 1.98 x 22.86 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    9780262550420
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0262550420
  8. See all details
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Review

A highly readable and iconoclastic treatment of the determinants of economic growth.—Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs—

It is impossible to convey the depth and range of The Elusive Quest for Growth.

—Bruce Bartlett, The Wall Street Journal—

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.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0262550423
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ MIT Press; Reprint edition (2 August 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 360 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780262550420
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262550420
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 505 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.39 x 1.98 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 111 ratings

About the author

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William Russell Easterly

William Russell Easterly

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William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU's Development Research Institute. He is editor of Aid Watch blog, Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Co-Editor of the Journal of Development Economics. He is the author of The White Man's Burden: How the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin, 2006), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT, 2001), 3 co-edited books, and 61 articles in refereed economics journals. William Easterly received his Ph.D. in Economics at MIT. He was born in West Virginia and is the 8th most famous native of Bowling Green, Ohio, where he grew up. He spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank. He is on the board of the anti-malaria philanthropy, Nets for Life. His work has been discussed in media outlets like the Lehrer Newshour, National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, the Washington Post, the Economist, the New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week, the Financial Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, and the Christian Science Monitor. Foreign Policy magazine inexplicably named him one of the world's Top 100 Public Intellectuals in 2008. His areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth, the political economy of development, and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He has worked in most areas of the developing world, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia. William Easterly is an associate editor of the American Economic Journals: Macroeconomics, the Journal of Comparative Economics and the Journal of Economic Growth. He is the baseball columnist for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

Erratum: The above bio contains one factual mistake due to careless proofreading. He is not really the baseball columnist for L'Osservatore Romano.

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Rogerio Nogues
5.0 out of 5 stars It is a very good book
Reviewed in Brazil on 23 October 2020
Verified Purchase
This book should be read by everyone interested or not in economic growth. It shows a very sad picture of what happens in poor countries.
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flamingflare
5.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in Canada on 17 September 2018
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Good
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Juan B.
5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the dazzling world of economics
Reviewed in Spain on 2 December 2016
Verified Purchase
Are you that person who wants to understand economics and financial management? Just read this book. Easy and amazingly rewarding.
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Roy
5.0 out of 5 stars tout simplement excellent
Reviewed in France on 7 February 2016
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Un ouvrage iconoclaste par un membre de la banque mondiale qui parle en connaissance de cause. Outre la présentation, c'est un véritable cours d'économie du développement qui nous est offert. En revanche, cet ouvrage est d'autant plus agréable à lire que l'on connait quelques éléments sur la théorie de la croissance et l'économie du développement. Un ouvrage que je recommande à mes étudiants.
One person found this helpful
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Saint John
5.0 out of 5 stars The Emperor's Clothes
Reviewed in the United States on 26 August 2001
Verified Purchase
The Elusive Quest for Growth, by Bill Easterly, a senior advisor in the research department of the World Bank, is a must read for anyone interested in global development. Its appeal lies in its unprecedented reach and candor in surveying the assumptions and theories underlying the development assistance provided by richer countries and international agencies to poorer countries. Easterly's conclusion is that the emperor (the international aid industry) has almost no clothes.
While one can quibble with the specifics of some of his analysis, the overall effect is a compelling, authoritative book that makes it impossible to avoid facing the fact that the current aid framework needs a radical overhaul. The aid industry has spent about 1 trillion dollars over the last forty years, and the returns have been disappointing. Fortunately, Easterly points the way toward the beginning of a new wardrobe. There's bad news and good news. The bad news is that nearly all of the theories that drive the design of aid programs are not borne out by the experience to date. Most fundamentally, the formal mathematical models underlying the macroeconomic analyses of organizations such as the World Bank and IMF are built on two plausible but wrong assumptions.
The first of these is that investment drives growth. Unfortunately, the record shows that investment only drives growth in those few cases where it is made in conjunction with appropriate technology, know-how, and a sound overall economic policy environment. The second wrong assumption is that aid increases investment. Extensive analysis indicates that most governments simply consume rather than invest the aid they receive. The striking thing about these two faulty pillars of the development paradigm is that even the best aid organizations continue to use a framework that they know is wrong. Easterly also takes a sober look at fads that have swept through the field of development. The first of these is education. Many people argued that investment in basic education is the key to stimulating growth, and this has led to massive investments and high hopes. Unfortunately, in retrospect the evidence shows little correlation between education investment and growth.
The same holds true with population control, where the link between population dynamics and growth has proven to be far more complex that originally expected. Easterly does not conclude that the evidence shows that education or population planning is unimportant; to the contrary, they can be effective but only in a broader context where other important conditions are also present.
What are some of these broader conditions that must be in place? Fortunately, we have made some progress in understanding what helps counties develop economically and socially. In particular, there is strong evidence that economic growth is the best way of reducing poverty in developing countries. Contrary to what many think, a one percent increase in overall income in a country tends to translate into a one percent increase in the income of the poorest. And we do know that economic growth itself requires countries to maintain policies that avoid certain pitfalls-in particular, high inflation and budget deficits, excessive black market premiums for their local currencies, negative real interest rates, corruption, and restrictive trade policies.
If we know at least the minimum policies required for growth and poverty reduction, then why don't most countries adopt them? Thus began another chapter in the history of development aid. Beginning in the 1980s, the World Bank, IMF, and others launched a large number of 'structural adjustment' programs designed to support countries' adoption of these policies.
Twenty years later, it is clear, however, that many of these programs were ineffective. There is little evidence that aid has had any influence on countries' policies. Instead, policies seem to be driven by the self-interest of the policy makers and the interests they represent. Easterly's refrain in the book is that 'people respond to incentives,' and this is clearly true at the macro-policy level as well as the household level.
One leading edge of thinking about development draws on the simple observation that people tend to associate with people like themselves. Well educated people with access to financial resources, technology, and know-how-some of the main ingredients for economic growth-tend to congregate with and learn from each other. This creates a virtuous cycle for them. Unfortunately the same dynamics hold for the poor. The poor, who tend to be less well educated, have less access to financial resources, technology, and know-how, also tend to congregate with each other. Consequently, the opportunities for learning, investment, and growth are lower. This raises the obvious question of how we can increase interaction between rich and poor, between the more advantaged and less advantaged.
This leads us to the current state of affairs, and ironically offers hope for a common ground between traditional policy economists and the critics of aid and globalization. Many of the critics are implicitly or explicitly arguing against corruption and/or policies that are implemented in a way that make the rich richer and the poor poorer-something that the policy economists agree with. Few people nowadays would disagree on the desirability of low inflation and budget deficits, a fairly valued currency, interest rates that encourage savings, and trade policies that don't force consumer to overpay and that give incentives for people to produce and export goods that can generate wealth.
The real issue is: How do we get governments to adopt these policies? And how can countries put in place the institutional capacity and governance arrangements that will ensure that good policies are fairly implemented? And how can we increase the direct connections between rich people and poor people?
These are as much political and social challenges as they are economic ones. And they require the policy economists and social activists not to butt their heads together, but to put their heads together to find a solution.
132 people found this helpful
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