William Easterly, professor of Economics at NYU, has written a new book challenging the prevailing development orthodoxy of increased aid and the “big push” to combat poverty in the Third World. The White Man’s Burden: Why The West’s efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, published by Penguin is to be released on March 20th.

Read more on The White Man’s Burden…

Bono and the One Campaign want us to sign a petition encouraging the government to spend 1 percent of the U.S. budget for aid to developing countries. The One Campaign states that this would “transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation of the poorest countries.”

Read more on Aid and the Mystery of Capital…

Bono and Sachs: Does The Edge feel left out?

Although I am a year behind here, I have just started reading Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, paperback just released by Penguin (with a foreword by Bono!). I’ll avoid the urge to comment on everything that strikes me this or that way in the book–and I most certainly am not going to try to go head to head with Sachs on economic matters. But, being a student of language, I would like to point out a subtlety some might consider benign, but I suspect is of relevance. It exists in the following passage from the Preface to the Paperback Edition: Read more on Beginning “The End of Poverty”…

Forbes is featuring a slideshow highlighting a series of the most corrupt countries around the world, based on findings from Transparency International. The list of the “The Most Corrupt Countries” includes Chad, Bangladesh, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Haiti, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cote D’Ivoire, Angola, Tajikistan, Sudan, Somalia, Paraguay, Pakistan, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

(Jacob Silberberg/AFP/Getty Images)

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The traditional formula for understanding the relationship between the developed and the developing world is the following: Aid = Economic Growth. That is, foreign aid spurs economic development in poorer nations.

Read more on Aid Does Not Equal Growth…

“Stop sending us your used clothes”

“Why 30 grams of fat is good for the poor”

“Look closely and you’ll see the Virgin Mary in this tortilla”

Acton is wrapping up a three-month project that had print advertisements running in several publications: WORLD, Crisis and the Michigan Catholic. The idea is to get people thinking about the economic consequences of trade policies and the power of entrepreneurial creativity. We’ve received a lot of feedback on this project, most of which was highly positive — with a few critical zingers. (Thanks to those of you who allowed us to use your names in the comments.) If you haven’t had a chance to see the ads, please visit the special Web page we built around this campaign for more information. We’d like to get your insights. Please email us at home [at] acton.org

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Jay Richards’ previous post on Richard Rahn’s article “Not Rocket Science” illustrates Huxley’s famous statement about a fact destroying a theory.

Jay quotes Rahn’s lists of the politicians and development experts who support increased foreign aid.

Read more on Foreign Aid vs. Economic Freedom II…