9 Quotes by William Easterly

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.

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

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

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

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

The rich have markets, the poor have bureaucrats.

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

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

Just as with the Maghribis, the clan’s ability to enforce contracts is a success on one level in making trade possible when no formal institutions are available. But on another level, the reliance on enforcement inside the clan retarded the development of formal laws and institutions that would have made available a much greater scope of trade – such as between clans.