William Easterly and the Pitfalls of Foreign Intervention

By Abigail R. Hall Blanco  •  Wednesday December 28, 2016 3:30 PM PST           
                                                                                                                   

In one of my recent blog posts, I discussed the work of NYU economist William Easterly. In particular, I noted how his work on the pitfalls of modern economic development planning bear a striking resemblance to the work and ideas of F. A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan.  Easterly makes a distinction between “planners” versus “searchers” in development activities. According to Easterly, a “planner” is someone who “thinks he already knows the answers.” A “searcher,” meanwhile, is someone who “admits he doesn’t know the answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated triangle of political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors” (page 6 of The White Man’s Burden). For Easterly, the world of development is full of planners. I contend this argumentation relates directly to F. A. Hayek’s discussion of top-down economic planning. Just as central planners cannot possess the knowledge necessary to plan economy, development planners face similar knowledge problems......To Read More...