Eliezer, it’s clear that Africa is in trouble. How compelling an argument does Moyo’s book offer for believing that Africa is in trouble because it needs less aid, rather than because it needs more?
In this particular context it seems a bit strange to describe Moyo as an African economist. She lives in London and so far as I can tell has lived in the West for most of her adult life. In particular, the two most obvious reasons one might have for trusting an African economist more on this issue—that her self-interest is more closely aligned with what’s best for Africa than with what’s best for the West, and that she’s constantly exposed to the economic realities of life in poor African countries—are less applicable than they would be to someone who actually lives in Africa.
Oh, and … $1 trillion. Sounds like a lot. That’s over the last 50 years, though. $20bn/year. Still sounds like a lot. The population of Africa is a little less than a billion. $20/year per person. Hmm. It’s not quite so obvious that that would be enough to have a major distorting effect. Total GDP of Africa is something like $2T/year, which would make foreign aid to Africa something like 1% of its GDP. Again, would we really expect much distortion from that? Or, for that matter: If it’s possible for aid to help Africa, would we expect aid at that level to have done much good?
(These are all without-even-an-envelope calculations, and could be badly wrong.)
Eliezer, it’s clear that Africa is in trouble. How compelling an argument does Moyo’s book offer for believing that Africa is in trouble because it needs less aid, rather than because it needs more?
In this particular context it seems a bit strange to describe Moyo as an African economist. She lives in London and so far as I can tell has lived in the West for most of her adult life. In particular, the two most obvious reasons one might have for trusting an African economist more on this issue—that her self-interest is more closely aligned with what’s best for Africa than with what’s best for the West, and that she’s constantly exposed to the economic realities of life in poor African countries—are less applicable than they would be to someone who actually lives in Africa.
Oh, and … $1 trillion. Sounds like a lot. That’s over the last 50 years, though. $20bn/year. Still sounds like a lot. The population of Africa is a little less than a billion. $20/year per person. Hmm. It’s not quite so obvious that that would be enough to have a major distorting effect. Total GDP of Africa is something like $2T/year, which would make foreign aid to Africa something like 1% of its GDP. Again, would we really expect much distortion from that? Or, for that matter: If it’s possible for aid to help Africa, would we expect aid at that level to have done much good?
(These are all without-even-an-envelope calculations, and could be badly wrong.)