William Easterly Quotes

Remember, aid cannot achieve the end of poverty. Only homegrown development base on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can do that.

We need a revolution in development thinking and practice. Foreign aid, debt relief, family planning, democracy, education, and free markets have not succeeded.

The rich have markets, the poor have bureaucrats.

When you are in a hole, the top priority is to stop digging.

To escape the cycle of tragedy, we (searchers) have to be tough on the ideas of the planners, even while we salute their goodwill.

Economists did something even better than predict the crisis. We correctly predicted that we would not be able to predict it.

If there is one number to which the rights of millions will be happily sacrificed, it is the national GDP growth rate.

Any factor that breeds polarization will worsen policy, and thus cause lower growth.

... money should not be spent according to what the West considers the most dramatic kind of suffering.