poor economics by abhijit v banerjee and esther duflo

The resulting higher incomes will generate further investments the beneficial spiral will continue. This is why foreign aid is key: It can kick-start a virtuous cycle by helping poor countries invest in these critical areas and make them more productive. But they cannot pay for the investments precisely because they are poor-they are in what economists call a 'poverty trap.' Until something is done about these problems, neither free markets nor democracy will do very much for them. Jeffrey Sachs, adviser to the United Nations, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City, and one such expert, has an answer to all these questions: Poor countries are poor because they are hot, infertile, malaria infested, often landlocked this makes it hard for them to be productive without an initial large investment to help them deal with these endemic problems. Are there ways for the poor to improve their lives, and what is preventing them from being able to do these things? Is it more the cost of getting started, or is it easy to get started but harder to continue? What makes it costly? Do people sense the nature of the benefits? If not, what makes it hard for them to learn them? Then we go on to describe how markets and institutions work for the poor: Can they borrow, save, insure themselves against the risks they face? What do governments do for them, and when do they fail them? Throughout, the book returns to the same basic questions. We open with the essential aspects of people's family lives: what they buy what they do about their children's schooling, their own health, or that of their children or parents how many children they choose to have and so on. Each chapter in this book describes a search to discover what these sticking points are, and how they can be overcome. It is a book about the kinds of theories that help us make sense of both what the poor are able to achieve, and where and for what reason they need a push.

Poor Economics is a book about the very rich economics that emerges from understanding the economic lives of the poor.

Poor economics by abhijit v banerjee and esther duflo