Editing Aid effectiveness (section)

==== P. T. Bauer ====
British economist [[Peter Thomas Bauer|P. T. Bauer]] argued that aid did more harm than good, notably in his books "Dissent on Development" (1972)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2666082|title=Dissent on development|date=1976|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-21282-7|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=2666082}}</ref> and "Reality and Rhetoric" (1984).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://archive.org/details/realityrhetorics0000baue/|title=Reality and rhetoric : studies in the economics of development|date=1984|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-74946-4|location=Cambridge, Mass.|oclc=9894295}}</ref> The main harmful effect was that aid channelled resources through governments, enabling inefficient state planning and producing a general "politicization of life" in which the population shifted its activities to the political sphere rather than the economic one.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Bauer|first=P. T.|url=https://archive.org/details/realityrhetorics0000baue/page/46|title=Reality and rhetoric : studies in the economics of development|date=1984|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=0-674-74946-4|location=Cambridge, Mass.|pages=27–28, 46|oclc=9894295}}</ref> On the other side, Bauer saw aid's benefits as being limited to the avoidance of commercial loan costs, which he did not consider to be a significant factor in countries' development (pp.&nbsp;47–49). He believed that the choices of aid projects were usually controlled by recipient governments less interested in alleviating poverty than enriching the elite (pp.&nbsp;49–52).