William Easterly: Bill and Melinda Gates confuse correlation with causation when it comes to aid

ASI's Tim Worstall links to Bill Easterly's critique of Bill & Melinda Gates' letter lauding aid and the tangible progress the world has made (FT via ASI):

The obsession with international aid is a rich-world vanity that exaggerates the importance of western elites. It is comforting to imagine that benevolent leaders advised by wise experts could make the poor world rich. But this is a condescending fantasy. The progress that Mr Gates celebrates is the work of entrepreneurs, inventors, traders, investors, activists – not to mention ordinary people of commitment and ingenuity striving for a better life. Davos Man may not be ready to acknowledge that he does not hold the fate of humanity in his gilded hands. But that need not stop the rest of us.