Free money for worthy Indians

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Do you know anyone in India who lives near a Western Union branch? If so, they have the chance to receive free money from Tyler Cowen, author of the new book Discover Your Inner Economist. Apparently, he enjoyed his two visits to India so much that he wants to make a “merit-based” gift to Indians.

By the end of this week, he will wire one Indian $500 and five others $100 each through Western Union. If his book gets published in India, he will also distribute the net, post-tax value of his Indian advance to individuals on the subcontinent.

Why in the world is Cowen, an economics professor and blogger, experimenting with this new form of charity? He thinks we should test out zero-overhead giving, in keeping with a belief that perhaps remittances are better than bureaucratic foreign aid. Additionally, he is trying to live by principles for helping people that he writes about in his book. Those principles are:

1. Cash is often the best form of aid.
2. Give to those who are not expecting it.
3. Don’t require the recipients to do anything costly to get the money.

If you live in India, you can enter yourself, or if you know someone living in India, you can enter on behalf of that person. All Cowen asks is that you send an e-mail with a one-sentence explanation of how the money will help India, according to the instructions posted on his blog.

Cowen says that this method is a zero-waste way of giving money. But with more than 1 billion people in India, it won’t shock me if at least one clever person figures out how to scam this experimental form of philanthrophy.