Helping Haiti

Monday, 1st February 2010

How best to help Haiti? Plenty of people will tell you that writing off Haiti's debt would be a good start. And, in truth, there's an argument to be made for doing just that. But no-one should think that will really have much of an impact on Haiti's ability to recover. What might make a difference, then? Letting Haitians leave Haiti, that's what. Alex Tabarrok has a handy chart:

The downside: What if all the best, most energetic people leave? Haiti may be a special, especially awful case but it bears saying that Haitians aren't the only people who would benefit from greater international freedom of movement. Plenty of other third world countries would too.

Filed under: Haiti (4 more articles) , Immigration (194 more articles)

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Yam Yam

February 1st, 2010 2:40pm Report this comment

I'm sure during the 1950s and 1960s someone could have trawled up a similar graph to demonstrate that the best policy for Ireland was to pay all the Paddies to move elsewhere. However, mass emigration didn't bring prosperity to Ireland any more than it will bring it to Haiti. It merely occasioned a 'brain drain' that acted as a permanent brake on economic growth.

What transformed Ireland's fortunes was membership of the EU (especially access to its generous Common Agricultural Policy and regional grants) and - more importantly - the election of Irish governments in the 1990s that were serious about finally taming inflation, cutting taxes and wooing overseas investment, thus lay the basis for lasting prosperity.

The West can offer Haiti a leg up through economic aid and debt cancellation. However, in the longer term Haiti desperately needs to be rid of its endemic sloth and corruption.

Unfortunately, only Haitians themselves can make that happen.

Frank P

February 1st, 2010 3:48pm Report this comment

Give it to the Mafia, they can turn it into licentious tourism and gambling haunt, with lax vice laws and money laundering possibilities. It's on the edge of the abyss quite literally. People who live in such hell-holes can hardly be expected to make long term economic plans. Superstition, voodoo, laziness and louche living prevails.
Understandable, but incurable.

Grassmarket

February 1st, 2010 4:19pm Report this comment

To follow up from Frank P - surely Haiti's tragedy is that unlike Trinidad, Cuba and Jamaica it has failed to develop an indigenous style of music with international appeal?