Product Description

Jeffrey Sachs draws on his remarkable 25 years’ experience to offer a thrilling and inspiring vision of the keys to economic success in the world today. Marrying vivid storytelling with acute analysis, he sets the stage by drawing a conceptual map of the world economy and explains why, over the past 200 years, wealth and poverty have diverged and evolved across the planet, and why the poorest nations have been so markedly unable to escape the trap of poverty. Sachs tells the remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China and Africa to bring readers with him to an understanding of the different problems countries face. In the end, readers will be left not with an understanding of how daunting the world’s problems are, but how solvable they are – and why making the effort is both our moral duty and in our own interests.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13837 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

About the Author
Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University as well as Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. He is internationally renowned for his work as economic advisor to governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa.

Customer Reviews

An Economic Messiah
Jeffrey Sach's book should be listed in the biographies and not in the economics section. Filled with generalisations and shortcuts and forwarded by an awestruck Bono, it fails to impress. Once one reaches the end of the book where the recipe to end poverty follows Dr. Sachs world travels, he/she will find the Gap Financing approach to development. The main idea is to indentify the national savings rate, the projected needed investment rate and fill the gap by aid. This pretty much has been the ineffectual method used since the end of WWII to address issues of underdevelopment. A quick survey of the literature (especially Easterly, 2001) can show its limitations. At least Dr. Sachs largely avoids presenting us too rudely with the usual neoliberal orthodoxy paraded by the World Bank and the IMF around the globe. Worth reading but probably not worth applying.

Profound, visionary, with achievable goals
In the first two chapters fascinating information is revealed about wealth creation and the resulting global wealth inequality in just two centuries. In 1820 the per capita income in USA was only threefold higher than in Africa namely 1,200 versus 400 dollars that is then the whole humanity was poor. To-day the per capita income in USA is 25fold higher than Africa. It is also a myth that this was the result of exploitation of the rich western countries of their former colonies though the author readily acknowledges that such exploitation occurred. The true engines of wealth creation are science and technology, division of labour and trade. Wealth creation is a no zero sum game that is one country does not get rich at the expense of another, all countries can escape from the poverty trap.

The author cites the evolution of wealth in parallel to the evolution of technology and industrialization with the resulting urbanization.

It all started in mid-eighteenth hundred century that is around 1750 with the invention of steam and its application in the textile industry and the steam boats. Then around 1850 the rapid mobility of people, merchandise and information with the invention of rail trains and telegraph. And around the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth of the internal combustion engine and electricity and the exploitation of fossil fuels as a source of energy. Also he attributes credit to German Chemistry for the techniques of extracting nitrogen from the atmosphere to make fertilizers and thereby increase crop yields.

The rest of the book is stimulating and articulates the thesis of the author that with International Aid, extreme poverty which he defines as people earning one dollar or less per day and now afflicting 1.3 billion of humanity or roughly one fifth can be eliminated by the year 2025. This cannot be achieved on their own because these people are caught in a poverty trap in that they earn so little so they do not have the basic needs to survive much less to save and invest in things like infrastructure, health, education and research and development. He computes that this can be effected if rich countries invest in Overseas Development Assistance 0.7 percent of their Gross Domestic Product. The current assistance by USA is just 0.15 percent.

In the process he gives fascinating statistics. In one table he gives the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of four Sub-Saharan countries and specifically Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda which collectively have 161,000,000 inhabitants with a collective GDP of 57 billion dollars which he compares with the collective income of the 400 richest American individuals who possess 69 billion dollars. The comparison is staggering.

The fascination and beauty of the book is that professor Sachs who incidentally at the age of 28 had a tenured faculty position at Harvard having been employed there at the age of 25 is that he relates his story drawing on his personal experience as Economic Advisor in several develoing countries and specifically in Bolivia in Latin America, in ex Socialist countries and specifiacally Poland and Russia, in Far Eastern counties and specifically India and China and several African su-Saharan countries which are the world's poorest having 40 percent of their 800 million population living in extreme povery and in addition afflicted by debilitating diseases like HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Sleeping Sickness.

Towards Economic Growth in Africa
Jeffrey Sachs has written a great book containing a great invitation. During the past two centuries, the biggest part of the world has seen a great economic growth. The one big exception is Africa. Africa is held by extreme poverty, disease and high debts. This difference between Africa and the rest of the world is not primarily caused by exploitation by rich countries (although that has happened to some extent). The difference is not primarily caused by a transfer of wealth from one region to another. Instead, there is a general increase in the world's income and some parts have hardly been able to taken part in this increase. Technology has been the most important driving force between the structural growth in the rich parts of the world. In some parts the geographical, demographic, economical and political circumstances were so unfortunate that real grow has not come off the ground.

The challenge is to help these extreme poor countries to start climbing the development ladder. When that happens a positive spiral of endogenous growth emerges. Once economic development lifts off it usually becomes a self propelling process. This seems to be happening in Asia now. Asia has known extreme poverty for a long time but now the economic climb has started (even in countries like Bangladesh which was once seen as a hopeless case). Problems are now too overwhelming for some African countries to get on their feet by themselves. The international community needs to help. The help needs to be more than it is now but still a tiny fraction of our wealth will be enough.

The book is great because it not only raises attention to this great problem but it also provides a very constructive perspective for solving it. I admire the author for not becoming too cynical and accusative. Instead, he remains factual and constructive and concrete throughout the book. On a detailed level, I have a slight doubt about the comparison Sachs makes between economics and medical practise. What I do believe is that different countries need tailored approaches because of their unique circumstances. Roughly, I think Sachs argues his case well and I believe his general conclusions to be roughly true. This book should contain many source of ideas for political leaders throughout the world.

Coert Visser