Poor Economics: Barefoot Hedge-fund Managers, Reluctant Entrepreneurs and the Surprising Truth about Life on less than $1 a Day Spring 2012 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf

Contributor(s): Professor Abhijit Banerjee | Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo won the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year 2011 for their analysis of why the poor, despite having the same desires and abilities as anyone else, end up with entirely different lives. They argue that so much of anti-poverty policy has failed over the years because of an inadequate understanding of poverty. Looking at some of the most surprising facets of poverty: why the poor need to borrow in order to save, why they miss out on free life-saving immunizations but pay for drugs that they do not need, and why they start many businesses but do not grow any of them, they give us all a new understanding of the complex reality of living on very little and offer practical solutions for reducing poverty. Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT. He is the recipient of many awards, including the inaugural Infosys Prize in 2009, and has been an honorary advisor to many organizations including the World Bank and the Government of India.