1. William Russell Easterly was born on September 7,1957 and is an American economist specializing in economic development.
16 Facts About William Easterly
1. 2.
William Easterly is a professor of economics at New York University, joint with Africa House, and co-director of NYU's Development Research Institute.
3.
William Easterly is a Research Associate of NBER, senior fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development of Duke University, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.
4.
William Easterly is the author of three books: The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics ; The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, which won the 2008 Hayek Prize; and The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, which was a finalist for the 2015 Hayek Prize.
5.
William Easterly then worked at the Institute for International Economics and the Center for Global Development until 2003, when he began teaching at New York University.
6.
William Easterly has worked in many areas of the developing world and some transition economies, most heavily in Africa, Latin America, and Russia.
7.
William Easterly is skeptical toward many of the trends that are common in the field of foreign aid.
8.
Searchers, according to William Easterly, have a much better chance to succeed.
9.
William Easterly argues that these technical solutions by experts fail to address the core of the problem.
10.
The first step, William Easterly argues, is to at least open a debate, a discussion about why the rights of the poor matter.
11.
Sachs responded to William Easterly's arguments, leading to a prolonged debate.
12.
William Easterly responded to Sachs in a letter in Foreign Policy in January 2014.
13.
William Easterly has produced a critical review of, and received a rebuttal from, Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang, to which he offered a counter-rebuttal.
14.
William Easterly's work has been discussed in media outlets such as National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Economist, The New Yorker, Forbes, Business Week, the Financial Times, and the Christian Science Monitor.
15.
In February 2025, amid efforts by the Donald Trump administration and Elon Musk to shutter USAID, William Easterly criticized the move.
16.
William Easterly said that some aid programs, in particular those dealing with public health, were clearly effective.