A little reading on the big push

Posted on September 6, 2006 by andrewleigh

I blogged last year on the Jeff Sachs “big push” view of international development versus the William Easterly “incremental change” view. Perhaps the best way of seeing the differences between the two is to read Easterly’s recent review of Sachs’ book, The End of Poverty.

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1 Response to A little reading on the big push

  1. Christine says:
    September 7, 2006 at 12:37 am

    I’ve been lucky enough to catch speeches by Sachs and Easterly recently. Both very impressive and convincing, yet extremely different styles. Sachs really went for the big push both in content and style. Easterly was the exact opposite – we all want to do something but before we rush in we need to sit back and reflect on how best to go about it, and make sure we don’t stuff up. Sachs had the crowd (public policy/generalists) on its feet applauding, ready to get out and do something to make a difference. Easterly had the crowd (economists) first laughing with him, which you wouldn’t have guessed he could do from first impressions, and then trying to carefully evaluate his claims.

    Both are obviously incredibly intelligent, have thought about the evidence a lot, and come up with completely different conclusions. Maybe because of different personalities/degrees of optimism? (Not that I have any personal knowledge of either, of course, so this is purest idle speculation.)

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