National Trends

Challenge to Government Foreign Aid

Last week, the AEA’s director of research, W. Glenn Campbell, appeared before the Committee to present his group’s report. Not a word of Dr. Campbell’s testimony was reported by the daily press, which was curious since the AEA had eschewed the familiar, perfunctory observations about the desirability of private investment as a supplement to government aid—and had found something really quite different to say about the whole subject of foreign aid. “The thesis of our report,” Dr. Campbell advised, “is two-fold; that, dollar for dollar, private foreign investment stimulates more economic growth than foreign aid; and that primarily reliance on private enterprise rather than government-to-government aid is more likely to produce an efficient and sustained rise in the welfare of underdeveloped countries as well as good political relations with the U.S.” The AEA’s conclusion was startling enough; but even more so its rationale — a bold, comprehensive, closely reasoned challenge to the basic premises of large-scale government aid.

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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Challenge to Government Foreign Aid

Last week, the AEA’s director of research, W. Glenn Campbell, appeared before the Committee to present his group’s report. Not a word of Dr. Campbell’s testimony was reported by the daily press, which was curious since the AEA had eschewed the familiar, perfunctory observations about the desirability of private investment as a supplement to government aid—and had found something really quite different to say about the whole subject of foreign aid. “The thesis of our report,” Dr. Campbell advised, “is two-fold; that, dollar for dollar, private foreign investment stimulates more economic growth than foreign aid; and that primarily reliance on private enterprise rather than government-to-government aid is more likely to produce an efficient and sustained rise in the welfare of underdeveloped countries as well as good political relations with the U.S.” The AEA’s conclusion was startling enough; but even more so its rationale — a bold, comprehensive, closely reasoned challenge to the basic premises of large-scale government aid.