Perpetuating Poverty: The World Bank, the IMF, and the Developing World (Hardback)

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Edited by Doug Bandow and Ian Vasquez

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Paperback Book $15.95
About the Book
For years, the assumption of traditional development economics was that the Third World was poor because it lacked capital. Thus, the suggested solution was to transfer wealth from the developed to the developing world. Since the private sector was believed to be unwilling or unable to bring prosperity to the poorest regions of the globe, governments had to plan and manage their nations' economies. And foreign aid would enable recipients to plan and manage better.

Alas, more than 40 years of international transfers have not benefited the Third World. Not only is foreign aid based on a flawed model of development, but there are other, more practical problems inherent to such transfer programs. One is that most development institutions, including multilateral aid agencies, lend to governments, not people. Thus, the IMF, World Bank, and other development banks have consistently made loans to the very Third World governments that have created the worst impediments to economic growth.
About the Editors
Doug Bandow is a former special assistant to President Reagan and author of The Politics of Plunder and editor of U.S. Aid to the Developing World. Ian Vásquez is assistant director of the Cato Institute's Project on Global Economic Liberty. His articles on foreign policy have appeared in newspapers in the United States and Latin America.
ISBN: 
1-882577-06-X
Number of Pages: 
376

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What Others Have Said
"This book deals with a highly important subject. The authors are the best people in the field."
—Peter Bauer

"Discussions of the Bretton Woods institutions tend to be restrained, even reverential. Not so this Cato volume. These studies dissect the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in promoting the politicization of economic life, in inhibiting private enterprise and so delaying the emergence from poverty. This volume argues that, because of the nature of their structure, the bank and fund cannot change toward pro-market and pro-growth policies."
—Alan Walters, personal economic adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

"With the best of intentions much harm is still being inflicted on the people of poor countries. In light of the persistence of the problem, those genuinely concerned should give themselves the opportunity to reexamine their premises, and this collection of essays offers them an excellent opportunity."
—Manual F. Ayau, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala

"Perpetuating Poverty destroys the myth that the multilateral aid agencies are forces for good and shows they are instead a major fraud perpetuating poverty in the developing countries. Doug Bandow and Ian Vásquez are to be congratulated for editing this precise, cold-eyed and extremely important collection of essays that merits a wide audience."
--Melvyn B. Krauss, professor of economics, New York University, and author of Development without Aid

"When our taxes are wasted, it's bad enough. When our money actually burdens people we rightly mean to help, the excuses stop. The elites who benefit from these money-lapping fiefdoms can no long cry 'Communism'—that's over. They can no longer hide behind complexity—the authors gathered here are first-rate and readable. This book may finally get you off your chair and to the stationery box."
—Jonathan Kwitny, author of Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World

"This is a book of major importance. Probably the most concise indictment of how Western aid coupled with good intentions have consistently propped up African dictators and impoverished Africans. Fortunately, we now have a book that provides concrete alternatives to aid."
—Charles Mensa, Institute of Economic Affairs, Ghana
$25.95