Poor Economics

Starred review from April 15, 2012
Economists Banerjee and Duflo present an important analysis of the complexities of poverty around the world. Their work spans more than 15 years in dozens of underdeveloped countries. Here, they provide a refreshingly new understanding of poverty, along with their absorbing solutions to it. In 2005, people in worldwide poverty numbered 865 million, or 13 percent of the world's population. The focus in this work is on the poorest of the poor, where the estimated minimum level of income needed to secure life's necessities is 16 Indian rupees (36[) per person per day. Relating this fact to Americans, the authors suggest imagining trying to live in Miami, FL, on 99[ a day. The material covers the economic lives of the poor, various prevalent theories of poverty, how governments can succeed in combating poverty, what the lives and choices of the poor tell us, how the poor can attend school but not really learn, and how many poor actually benefit very little from insurance. VERDICT Narrator Brian Holsopple's nicely paced, steady reading conveys world poverty in a unique manner and is highly recommended for all university libraries. [The PublicAffairs pb published in March.--Ed.]--Dale Farris, Groves, TX

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 9, 2011
Banerjee (Making Aid Work) and Duflo (a contributor to Reinventing Foreign Aid), professors at MIT and founders of the university's Poverty Action Lab, offer answers to questions about aid: what it accomplishes, where it fails, which anti-poverty programs work and which do not, and why nine million children under the age of five die every year. Their results are often surprising, even counter-intuitive. For instance, many poorer families will concentrate their education dollars on the child they think most likely to succeed, sending that child (usually a boy) to school longer rather than spreading their education spending between all children, which might yield more in the long run. Banerjee and Duflo found evidence that relatively inexpensive improvements, such as water purification, may ultimately benefit a community more than, say, providing grain products. They also discovered that Kenyan abstinence programs encouraging school girls to marry older men resulted in an increase in HIV-AIDS, as older men are more likely to be HIV-positive. Their empirical approach differs from policy discussions that base support or criticism of aid programs on a broad overview; instead they illuminate many practicable and cost-effective ways to keep children and parents living healthier and more productive lives. An important perspective on fighting poverty.