Angus Deaton: The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

Abstract

Angus Deaton’s book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, is a thoughtful and optimistic consideration on why some nations are wealthy, and thus healthy, and why others are not. Deaton purposefully chose the title to juxtapose his vision of progress with The Great Escape (1963) in which Steve McQueen and other POWs try to escape Nazi imprisonment–some make it and some do not. Wellresearched, deftly argued, and entertaining throughout, academics and laymen alike will benefit from understanding Deaton’s point of view. Students of development and health economics will find in this book a clear introduction to modern debates in economics regarding statistical measurement, inequality, aid, and institutions. Of specific interest to the Austrian economist is Deaton’s aversion to the “hydraulic” approach to development and foreign aid (272). The hydraulic approach is the idea that complex social interactions can be reduced to machine-like processes where one can simply pull levers or push buttons to improve outcomes. According to Deaton, many economists view foreign aid as if it were water flowing through a system of lead pipes. Interactions in the social and political world are much more complex. Deaton’s quest is one of understanding the world around him as opposed to a more interventionist one, which he believes may do more harm than good. The book’s optimism, which should be commended, comes from Deaton’s continued acknowledgement that most people living today are healthier than their forebears in any previous generation–a point that many forget when focusing on specific failures of development policy or on perceived inequality. The gains in health come in the form of longer, more productive, and happier lives. Deaton’s story of the great escape is one of success in that more people have been raised out of poverty in the last two centuries than ever before. But it is a story of failure as well, in that many still face the burden of poverty and disease. For example, why is it the case that many children today are “... dying from the same diseases that killed European children in the seventeenth and DOI 10.1007/s11138-014-0269-5