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Abhijit V. Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Hardcover – 9 Jun. 2011

by Abhijit Banerjee (Author), Esther Duflo (Author)

4.6 4,056 ratings

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This book comes from the award-winning founders of the unique and remarkable Abdul Latfi Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory at MIT, a transformative reappraisal of the world of the extreme poor, their lives, desires and frustrations. Winner of the 2011 FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award this book describes how billions of government dollars, and thousands of charitable organizations and NGOs are dedicated to helping the world's poor. But much of the work they do is based on assumptions that are untested generalizations at best, flat out harmful misperceptions at worst. Banerjee and Duflo have pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics. Work based on these principles, supervised by the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, is being carried out in dozens of countries. 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. Their work transforms 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. Throughout, the authors emphasize that life for the poor is simply not like life for everyone else: it is a much more perilous adventure, denied many of the cushions and advantages that are routinely provided to the more affluent: if they do not have a piped water supply the poor cannot benefit from chlorination; if they cannot afford ready-made breakfast cereals they cannot gain the enriched vitamins and other nutrients; they are routinely denied access to markets; and, they get negative interest rates on their savings, while exorbitant rates are charged on their loans. The daily stress of poverty discourages long-term thinking and often leads to bad decision-making. Add to that the fact the poor are routinely denied the information that might help them manage the nightmarish predicament that in most cases they are born into through no fault of their own. Bannerjee and Duflo are practical visionaries whose meticulous work offers all of us an opportunity to think of a world beyond poverty.

ISBN-10

1586487981
ISBN-13

978-1586487980
Publisher

PublicAffairs,U.S.
Publication date

9 Jun. 2011
Language

English
Dimensions

17.15 x 3.18 x 24.77 cm
Print length

320 pages
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Product description

Review

"In an engrossing new book, (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo) draw on some intrepid research and a store of personal anecdotes to illuminate the lives of the 865m people who, at the last count, live on less than $0.99 a day". --The Economist

"(A) new book by Duflo and co-author Abhijit Banerjee, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, will once more turn the spotlight on actions to tackle poverty. The book aims to make 2011 the year that the "economics of poverty" become a key part of international political discussions." --The Guardian Online

"(W)onderfully insightful and compassionate..."
--The Guardian Online

About the Author

Abhijit V Banerjee was educated in Kolkata, Delhi and Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT. He is the recipient of many honours and awards, and has been an honourary advisor to many organisations including the World Bank and the Government of India. Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT. She studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and at MIT, and is the recipient of several important awards including a MacArthur "Genius" award (2009) and the John Bates Clark medal awarded annually to the best American economist under 40 (2010). In 2003, Banerjee & Duflo co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which they continue to direct.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs,U.S. (9 Jun. 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1586487981
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1586487980
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 17.15 x 3.18 x 24.77 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 473,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 177 in Technical Analysis of Personal Finances
- 225 in International Economic Development
- 478 in International Accounting

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4.6 4,056 ratings

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Anton Botha

in line with my thinking but limited in usefulness.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 February 2023

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Not very practical to implement on a systemic scale. I guess that is really the purpose of the book….do it at the margin

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Johnny Blue

Good, but there are better books that cover similar territory

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 March 2015

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The two authors have impeccable credentials as economists researching the effectiveness of interventions aimed at relieving extreme poverty and its associated harms: as have Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel whose book “More Than Good Intentions: Improving the Ways the World's Poor Borrow, Save, Farm, Learn, and Stay Healthy” was published one year earlier and covers similar territory. Both books took me by surprise in similar ways. I had expected much more data from their own work and that of others. I was looking for hard facts derived from good research. Most of the facts presented by the authors were ones I was previously aware of from websites of the various organisations concerned with such e.g. Innovations for Poverty Action, Give Well, Giving Evidence, the Life You Can Save. I was also surprised by the amount of what I can only describe as “descriptive research”, “soft science” or conjecture which made up most of both books. Banerjee and Duflo (like Karlan and Appel) do not just set up randomised controlled trials and crunch the numbers, they also work in the field. Both books are replete with rich descriptions and case studies but this is the province of sociologists and social anthropologists not economists (or even behavioural economists). So there is a mixture of hard science (which they are world leaders in) and very soft science (which can be misleading because it is not the product of rigorous evaluation).

Of the two books I found Banerjee and Duflo’s more informative and better written than Karlan and Appel’s. However there are two far superior books that, though having slightly different aims, do address the evidence base for effective interventions. These are Peter Singer’s “The Life You Can Save” and Caroline Fiennes’ “It Ain’t What You Give it’s the Way that you Give It”. I recommend Inspirational videos by Peter Singer (www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism), Caroline Fiennes (www.giving-evidence.com/2015/02/02/non-publication/) and Esther Duflo (www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty?).

6 people found this helpful

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Erik Peterson

Essential Reading - authoritative, objective, real

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2019

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I don't think I've ever given a book 5 stars before. I'm a (hard) scientist and work in aid. I have to be honest, I have little respect for much of social science with unproven theories and wishy washy ideas motivated by personal politics. This book is amazing. It gives good case studies with intriguing economic discussions that really delve into the reality (and not the hyperbole) of poor communities. So many of the examples are exactly what I encounter in my work, yet the insight and objective thinking of the authors and team doing this work are excellent.

This is a MUST READ for anyone working in development. I love 'White Man's Burden' but for me this can and should shape how we think about getting people out of poverty on the all essential local scale. The authors have done a fantastic service to the aid sector, I just hope that it becomes widely read! This book will change people's lives, because I'll be reflecting on this thinking in my own work.

9 people found this helpful

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Christie

Great book 😄

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2016

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I found this book very interesting and engaging because it examined lots of alternative causes of poverty and solutions to poverty. Poor economics is definitely suitable for people who don't have a lot of knowledge of economics and will probably still be interesting to those who have already got a good understanding.

Development economics is really interesting to me because it has real life implications and evaluating the outcomes of strategies that have been used to improve the living standards of the poor can have surprising results. One of my favourite parts of the book was about microfinance and whether is actually helps the poor.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it! Another similar development economics book that I enjoyed was Why Nations Fail.

One person found this helpful

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DAVID L.

There is poor and then there is really poor

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 November 2019

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Completely different take on why poor don't always behave like we assume they should. What can be done differently and why they may work when the standard fixes struggle

2 people found this helpful

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Ian Parsley

Brilliantly challenging

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2015

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This is a must-read guide to what is in fact a relatively successful story of tackling global poverty. Has clear relevance even to inner-city poverty in Western societies.

Must be read with an open mind, however. The experience of poverty is radically different to what those of us lucky enough not to experience it may think.

One person found this helpful

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Lookfar

a must read / imprescindible

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 January 2015

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Poor economics should be read by anybody working with ngos,s, government or just interested in how to help erradicate poverty.
The book describes a science based approach to social issues for which we all think have an answer!
Poor economics es una lectura imprescindible para cualquier persona interesada en la erradicacion de la pobreza, trabaje para instituciones u ONG,s.
Este libro describe una aproximacion cientifica a cuestiones sociales para las cuales todos creemos tener soluciones!

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MBT Salisbury

A thought provoking read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 November 2012

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I "enjoyed" this book as it made me stop and think. I say "enjoyed" as there are some difficult illustrations that seem counter-intuitive so to say it was enjoyable would be wrong given the human struggle involved. It seems to be presented in a balanced and evidenced way, rather than a mere set of opinions.

I would say it is definately worth a read.

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Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Hardcover – 9 Jun. 2011

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Abhijit V. Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

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