Rock star economics

Here's a thought-provoking piece by Paul Theroux in today's New York Times (subscription required). 

Campaigning around the world is clearly good for the careers of people like Bono and friends. But Theroux's personal experience teaching in Africa and having to come back to the same place 40 years later offers a slightly more nuanced perspective as to how little "aid for trade" schemes being discussed here in Hong Kong - as opposed to concrete agreements that bring down the barriers to free trade - will work to actually help anybody but unaccountable kleptocrats.