The straw-man parade

Economist Wm Easterly takes time off from defending Dambisa Moyo to post a semi-ad-hominem attack on hisfavorite whipping boy, economist Jeff Sachs. The question really is whether either Sachs, an advocate of the "big aid" approach to development, or Easterly, in favor of market-based approaches, is offering a serious argument or simply re-circulating the ideas with which they've become linked. Easterly starts by contrasting the "root" approach to planning--generate a comprehensive plan in advance--to the "branch" approach developed by the American political scientist Charles Lindblom in his article, "The Science of Muddling Through."

Easterly, who famously contrasts searchers (muddling through) and planners in The White Man's Burden, swipes at Sachs for clinging to an outmoded root model that would otherwise be entirely lacking adherents:

Is the “root method” kind of a straw man? Surely nobody could be that extreme? Well nobody except for Professor Jeffrey Sachs and his many followers. Professor Sachs wrote a column in the New York Times last week about agricultural aid (Sachs seems to have at least briefly returned to aid after a prolonged foray into global warming and commenting on rich country macroeconomic policy vis-à-vis the Crash). A bit of the “root” planning method seems evident:

The {aid} recipient countries should be invited to prepare plans and budgets that would be reviewed by independent experts. These plans would describe the inputs needed by the farmers, the expected increase in production, how the strategy would be put into place and how much money would be required.

OK, Sachs' approach as it usually does places enormous faith on the willingness and ability of governments to develop plans in order to justify the acquisition of aid. And in this instance, he cites Cambodia, Malawi and Honduras (tagging a few countries on a few continents as sweepstakes winners) as likely participants. Even IF these governments have the capacity to accurately plan an agricultural intervention, they have no incentive to do so. An inaccurate plan will do just as well, especially given that they'll be competing for subsequent funds with other authors of inaccuracies, and that the donors' agents have no incentives to point out gaps that occur between plans and the realities of their implementation.   

However Sachs' essay is written in response to the Pres. Obama's proposal to double U.S. overseas aid for agriculture to $1 billion in the form of support for small-hold farmers. Sachs, however optimistically, is at least trying to provide an answer to a reasonable question (why give what funds to which countries?).  Easterly, in his eagerness to trash Sachs, proposes a counter-model that skips Sachs' premise ($500 million for small-hold farmers requires some method of administration) and ends up implying, when both articles are read in full, that the best means of distributing such funds if they were ever authorized by Congress would be to, well, distribute them to governments who would muddle through their distribution to farmers and the others in the farm sector who would muddle through figuring out what to do with them.

Neither of them can be serious, can they?

(Weirdly, however, in the essay in question, Sachs is contrasting his proposed approach--developing-country governments draft plans and apply for funds--with an even more plan-based scenario: "The traditional approach, and the wrong one in this case, would be for Washington to try to decide what's best for each country, and then spend considerable time and money on report-writing, site visits and professional advice." Now, that's a straw-man, at least these days.)