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The Big Push Déjà Vu: a Review of Jeffrey Sach's the End of Poverty

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The Big Push Déjà Vu: a Review of Jeffrey Sach's the End of Poverty Ma06_Article 3 2/24/06 4:17 PM Page 96 Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XLIV (March 2006), pp. 96–105 The Big Push Déjà Vu: A Review of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time ∗ William Easterly Jeffrey Sachs’s new book (The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin Press: New York, 2005) advocates a “Big Push” featuring large increases in aid to finance a package of complementary investments in order to end world pover- ty. These recommendations are remarkably similar to those first made in the 1950s and 1960s in development economics. Today, as then, the Big Push recommendation overlooks the unsolvable information and incentive problems facing any large-scale planning exercise. A more promising approach would be to design incentives for aid agents to implement interventions piecemeal whenever they deliver large benefits for the poor relative to costs. 1. Introduction fifteen years ago about shock therapy versus effrey Sachs is the economics profession’s gradualism in the ex-Communist countries. Jleading advocate of megareform. Whether It taps into a long-standing intellectual it is stabilization of hyperinflation in Bolivia, debate about social change in general, dat- shock therapy to leap from Communism to ing at least as far back as Edmund Burke’s capitalism in Poland and Russia, or a “Big critique of the French Revolution. Burke Push” to end world poverty, Sachs’s recom- preferred gradual reform to revolution, just mendation throughout his career has been to as in the twentieth century Karl Popper do it fast, do it big, do it comprehensively, argued for “piecemeal democratic reform” and do it with lots of Western money. as opposed to “utopian social engineering.” Sachs’s approach, as set out in vivid detail Earlier in the twentieth century, there was a 1 in his fascinating new book, raises an inter- debate about planning versus markets. esting debate for economists about the mer- This debate is particularly relevant for its of the “Big Push” versus incremental economic development, where “utopian reform. This carries on the debate begun 1 A recent treatment of economic reform, in light of this intellectual tradition is John McMillan (2004), who discuss- es “shock therapy” in particular. McMillan is one of those ∗ Easterly: New York University. who inspired me to go back and read Popper’s writings. 96 Ma06_Article 3 2/24/06 4:17 PM Page 97 Easterly: The Big Push Déjà Vu 97 social engineering” has attracted more intel- sound plausible: insecticide-treated bed lectual support than in other fields of eco- nets to protect children from malarial mos- nomics. Because the tragedy of the world’s quitoes, fertilizer for crops, and health clin- poorest peoples is so heartbreaking, an ics. Sachs believes you must do everything appropriately large response is more appeal- to accomplish anything: “These interven- ing in development economics than in more tions need to be applied systematically, dili- emotionally neutral areas like, say, the effi- gently, and jointly since they strongly ciency of the stock market. The Big Push reinforce one another” (p. 208) and “success appeals because it seems to promise a quick in any single area, whether in health, or end to the tragedy. Perhaps it is also seduc- education, or farm productivity, depends on tive to us as economists because it suggests investments across the board” (p. 256). our analysis and recommendations can have Who would actually implement this pack- a large effect. As Sachs says: “I have also age and how? This is really the critical part of gradually come to understand through my the book, and here Sachs seems to back social scientific research and on the ground adviso- engineering against Popper’s piecemeal dem- ry work the awesome power in our genera- ocratic reforms. The book says “We need tion’s hands to end the massive suffering of plans” (p. 227). Sachs many times seems to the extreme poor . .” (p. 2). suggest that aid agency officials and national To unleash this power, Sachs proposes the government leaders should do planning from Big Push for poor countries. The principle the center to make everything happen. element in the Big Push would be a doubling Professor Sachs has subsequently objected to of foreign aid, to about $100 billion a year, the characterization of his arguments as top- then nearly doubling again by 2015. Foreign down planning, so I will give some quotes aid would fill a “financing gap” between what from his book that led many readers (includ- a country needs and what it can afford on its ing this reviewer) to this interpretation. In a own, making it possible for each of the poor- section titled: “Planning for Success”: est countries “to break out of the poverty trap and begin growing on its own” (p. 250). “The UN Secretary General…should oversee Another big element in ending the pover- the entire effort…the secretary general…should ensure that the global compact is put into oper- ty trap is a comprehensive package of inter- ation” (p. 269) ventions covering virtually all of the needs of poor people. This is because Sachs sees spe- Each country should have 5 plans, including an cific areas of underinvestment as particular- “Investment Plan, which shows the size, timing, ly critical, like insufficient spending on and costs of the required investments” (p. 273) health and soil fertility. Sachs identified these interventions as part of his work lead- “Getting from here to there is a matter of rou- tine planning, not heroics” (p. 274) ing the UN Millennium Project, which com- missioned ten task forces that mobilized 250 “Each low-income country should have the ben- experts. Sachs presents a fifty-four-item efit of a united and effective UN country team, checklist of barriers to development (p. 54) which coordinates in one place the work of the that must be overcome with the compre- UN specialized agencies, the IMF, and the hensive package. In a separate report, the World Bank. In each country, the UN country team should be led by a single UN resident UN Millennium Project listed 449 interven- coordinator, who reports to the United Nations tions that it recommended to end world Development Program, who in turn reports to poverty (UN Millennium Project, the UN secretary-general” (p. 285). Millennium Development Goals Needs Assessment). The book discusses many of The book clearly does not advocate that these interventions in detail, many of which any economy switch over to central planning Ma06_Article 3 2/24/06 4:17 PM Page 98 98 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (March 2006) as an economic system; Sachs is obviously a campaigner as well as an economist, perhaps believer in free markets in general. Yet he we can indulge a slogan that “we” will be argues in the book that free markets do not able to “to heal a divided planet, to end the offer much hope for the poorest countries, suffering of those still trapped by poverty, and that a comprehensively planned set of and to forge a common bond of humanity, interventions is needed to get the poorest security, and shared purpose across cultures one-sixth of humanity out of poverty. and regions” (p. 3). However, Sachs reiterates the promises of 2. Sachs and Development Economics great results so frequently that it seems to be more than political rhetoric. “The end of How are we to place Sachs’s prescriptions poverty is at hand—within our generation— for ending world poverty into the develop- but only if we grasp the historic opportunity in ment economics literature? The first thing front of us” (p. 25). The “success in ending the that stands out is how familiar Sachs’s argu- poverty trap will be much easier than it ment sounds. He is restating almost exactly appears” (p. 289). Referring to the old the arguments of development economists Enlightenment dream of world peace, democ- made in the 1950s and 1960s, even using the racy, and prosperity, Sachs says “many of its same words. Then, as now, there were econ- sweetest fruits are within our reach” (p. 352). omists who advocated a Big Push to get countries out of a “poverty trap,” foreign aid 3. Big Solutions in Other Contexts to fill the “financing gap,” and action on all fronts through comprehensive “planning.” The book includes Sachs’s successful expe- To be sure, development economists at that riences in Bolivia and Poland in stabilizing time advocated far more state intervention high inflation through “shock therapy.” Here in the poor economies than Sachs does now. perhaps is a clue to the book’s confidence in Yet otherwise the concepts are remarkably the power of policymakers. You can solve similar between then and now. The 1960 high inflation with some top-down actions by counterpart to Sachs’s The End of Poverty policymakers—fix the exchange rate and was Walt Rostow’s best-selling The Stages of stop printing money. Unfortunately, the top- Economic Growth, which argued that coun- down solutions do not translate well into fix- tries could emerge out of stagnation into ing whole societies that are at one-sixtieth of self-sustained growth thanks to an aid- U.S. per capita income and with very differ- financed increase in investment. Over the ent institutions, social norms, and economic intervening forty-five years, many academic arrangements. development economists abandoned these The promise of a big solution to a very big ideas as simplistic, realizing that economic problem is an outlier in the practice of eco- development is a complicated interplay of nomics, where usually economists study markets (with many imperfections), politics, marginal changes to existing systems or poli- social norms, institutions, and government cies to generate marginal improvements.
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