To escape the cycle of tragedy, we (searchers) have to be tough on the ideas of the planners, even while we salute their goodwill.

If there is one number to which the rights of millions will be happily sacrificed, it is the national GDP growth rate.

Peter Montiel has long set the highest standard for lucid textbooks on the macroeconomics of developing countries. Now in this new edition of his superb classic Macroeconomics in Emerging Markets, he has surpassed even himself. He uniquely fills the gap between rich-country-obsessed macro- and micro-obsessed developing-country analysis. No student of the macroeconomics of development will henceforward be able to do without this book.

The rich have markets, the poor have bureaucrats.

There was no Marshall Plan for Harry Potter, no International Financing Facility for books about underage wizards. It is heartbreaking that global society has evolved a highly efficient way to get entertainment to rich adults and children, while it can't get twelve-cent medicine to dying poor children.

Remember, aid cannot achieve the end of poverty. Only homegrown development base on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can do that.

When you are in a hole, the top priority is to stop digging.