The gap between intention and implementation can be quite wide. Government corruption: poverty trap. Corruption creates massive ineficies. Both political scientist and economists typically think of institutions at a very high level.
Aid should be give specific goals (such as malaria control, food production, safe drinking water and sanitation) that can easily be monitored.
Good economic institutions will encourage citizens to invest, accumulate, and develop new technologies as a result of which society will prosper. Bad economic institutions will have the opposite effects (“Why Nations Fail”)
Easterly philosophy is not pessimistic, though. He believes that countries can find their own way to success, but they need to be left alone to do so. Despite his aversion to experts and his claims that there are no “one-size-fits-all” solution, Easterly has one piece of expert advice-freedom. Freedom means both as much political freedom as possible and economic freedom “the most underrated of human inventions” that is, free market. Freedom cannot be imposed from outside, otherwise it would not be freedom.
Decentralization and democracy in practice, power to people, educate them to not vote for ethics but for merits.
Three Is: ideology, ignorance, inertia.
We can successfully address poverty, perhaps in a limited way, even in bad institutional environments, by focusing on concrete measurable problems; making people richer and more educated can start a virtuous circle where good institutions will emerge.
With a free market, if the state is weak or corrupt, the free market will tend to naturally reemerge via bribes and corruption?