Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.46 (529 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B006ST3XTW |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 590 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-07-05 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Refreshing and Powerful Vision of Anti-Poverty Policy The authors identify three major approaches to dealing with world poverty, suggest that whatever their virtues and faults, there is a very piecemeal and pragmatic approach through which significant gains can be made without addressing the systemic obstacles identified by the three approaches. Their analysis is brilliant, focused, rooted in first-rate data sets, yet rich in social detail and anecdotal vignettes. I believe there are probably right, and their approach deserves to be widely studied an evaluated by policy makers in the advanced and developing countries.The dominant school of thought is probably the supply-side theory, most visibly. mikephd80 said An Excellent Primer to Global Poverty. This book is a treasure trove of information about global poverty. I came into the book with a host of naïve assumptions about why poverty exists and what can be done to stop it, but the authors referenced a plethora of research studies that obliterated my ill-conceived notions about poverty and provided me with a solid foundation of knowledge upon which I can build.Prior to this book, I held a number of beliefs that I simply assumed were common sense. For example, I had assumed that if you offered free food to someone who is consuming barely enough calories to survive that the overall amount of calories they consume would increase. Appa. J_Nasielski said Amazing introduction to how poor people actually live - Don't really agree with use of RCTs. As a development professional (i.e. someone who is paid to help poor people in poor countries) I'm very happy to see how the experiences and theories of the authors meld with my own experiences of how poor people in developing countries conduct their lives and organize their livelihoods. As such, I'd say the book serves as an excellent introduction to the economic lives of the poor (although their is another book entitled exactly that, also excellent) and what type of development interventions are likely to work.The authors advocate for a more measurable approach to development: conduct development projects like scientific experiments to see
Drawing on this and their 15 years of research from Chile to India, Kenya to Indonesia, they have identified wholly new aspects of the behavior of poor people, their needs, and the way that aid or financial investment can affect their lives. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics. Their work defies certain presumptions: that microfinance is a cure-all, that schooling equals learning, that poverty at the level of 99 cents a day is just a more extreme version of the experience any of us have when our income falls uncomfortably low. Work based on these principles, supervised by the Poverty Action Lab, is being carried out in dozens of countries. But much of their work is based on assumptions that are untested generalizations at best, harmful misperceptions at worst. This important book illuminates how the poor live, and offers all of us an opportunity to think of a world beyond poverty.. Billions of government dollars, and thousands of charitable organizations and NGOs, are dedicated to helping the world's poor