Menard Family George Washington Forum presents 'Saviors vs. Liberators: the Debate on Ending Global Poverty' on Oct. 9

The Menard Family George Washington Forum will host William Easterly discussing "Saviors vs. Liberators: the Debate on Ending Global Poverty" on Oct. 9, at 6 p.m. in the Baker Center Theater.

"Dr. Easterly is an intellectual giant in the field of development economics, and we are extremely fortunate to host him as part of our speaker series. His work centers on the rights of those whom poverty and aid programs are intended to help, and he offers profound reasons why technocratic solutions from well-intended experts often fail to alleviate the suffering of the poor," said Cortney Rodet, director of the George Washington Forum and associate professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio University.

"These reasons include lacking an understanding of the history, culture, politics and ways of life in devastatingly poor communities. Ultimately, good intentions are not enough, and careful thought is required to understand how programs change incentives at all levels of program implementation. We encourage everyone in the OHIO community to join us on Oct. 9," Rodet said.

Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University (NYU) and co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of three books: The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (March 2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (2006), which won the FA Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute, and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (2001).

He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed academic articles and has written columns and reviews for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Review of Books, and Washington Post. He has served as co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics and as director of the blog Aid Watch. He is a research associate of NBER and senior fellow at BREAD. Foreign Policy Magazine named him among the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals in 2008 and 2009, and Thomson Reuters listed him as one of Highly Cited Researchers of 2014. 

This event is free and open to the public.