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To hear economist Jeffrey Sachs (2006) or U2’s Bono tell the tale, foreign aid provides the single greatest hope for lifting the world’s poor out of their misery. Sincere pleas for more aid by the rockstar economist and the economist rock star rarely fail to move their listeners, and together the two men have helped make ending global poverty through foreign aid the “next big project” on the international agenda.

Aid cheerleaders like Sachs and Bono point to many examples throughout the world where aid has helped to heal the sick, educate the illiterate, and feed the hungry. Indeed, they argue, for the many poor countries without meaningful access to global capital, aid can provide roads, energy, medicine, and textbooks, among many other necessities, to citizens who would otherwise go without.