Doing Bad by Doing Good Quotes

“Investing scarce resources in large-scale public projects and capital goods does increase output, but it does not contribute to economic progress if these investments do not produce things people value.”
― Christopher Coyne, Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails

“bureaus have an incentive to highlight “new” and “urgent” challenges that require immediate increases in their funding in order to avoid some severely negative outcome or catastrophe that will supposedly happen absent more funding.”
― Christopher J. Coyne, Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails

“policymakers and humanitarian practitioners often lack a basic understanding of how markets operate to coordinate activities and generate mutually beneficial outcomes to improve human welfare. In many cases, the result of this ignorance is that interventions intended to help people in the wake of crises actually end up hurting those most in need. One example of this is price-gouging laws intended to protect those already suffering from being exploited by sellers who charge a supposed “unconscionable” or “obscene” price. While the rhetoric of these laws is politically appealing, in reality they reduce the amount of goods and services available to those who are most in need because the inability to charge a higher price provides a disincentive for entrepreneurs to adapt and redirect goods to the crisis-stricken area.”
― Christopher J. Coyne, Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails

“all state-led humanitarian action is political.”
― Christopher J. Coyne, Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails