Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

One of the hottest items on the agenda of both rich and poor countries this year is foreign aid, particularly in light of last year’s announcement at the G8 Meeting at Gleneagles that donor countries would increase aid to help reduce extreme poverty according to the Millennium Development Declaration guidelines. Some have even proposed that rich countries tie the amount of aid given to a percentage of their gross domestic products. But what will more money do this time for the poor that it has not yet done for them in the past? How will the poor benefit from increased aid? Dr. William Easterly will provide some insights into these questions as well as discuss his latest research and its implications on current aid programs.

Dr. William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and Co-Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. He also serves as a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. He spent sixteen years as a Research Economist at the World Bank. His areas of expertise are the determinants of long-run economic growth and the effectiveness of foreign aid. He was worked on all continents, but most intensively in Africa, Latin America, and Russia.

Copies of Dr. Easterly's recent book, The White Man's Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, published earlier this month will be available for purchase and to be signed by the author.