FROM THE WINNERS OF THE 2019 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS 'Wonderfully refreshing . . . A must read' Thomas Piketty In this revolutionary book, prize-winning economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. From immigration to inequality, slowing growth to accelerating climate change, we have the resources to address the challenges we face but we are so often blinded by ideology. Original, provocative and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times offers the new thinking that we need. It builds on cutting-edge research in economics - and years of exploring the most effective solutions to alleviate extreme poverty - to make a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. A much-needed antidote to polarized discourse, this book shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.

Why do the poor borrow to save? Why do they miss out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs? In Poor Economics , Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two practical visionaries working toward ending world poverty, answer these questions from the ground. In a book the Wall Street Journal called marvellous, rewarding," the authors tell how the stress of living on less than 99 cents per day encourages the poor to make questionable decisions that feed,not fight,poverty. The result is a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty that offers a ringside view of the lives of the world's poorest, and shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.

FROM THE WINNERS OF THE 2019 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS 'Refreshingly original, wonderfully insightful . . . an entirely new perspective' Guardian Why would a man in Morocco who doesn't have enough to eat buy a television? Why do the poorest people in India spend 7 percent of their food budget on sugar? Does having lots of children actually make you poorer? This eye-opening book overturns the myths about what it is like to live on very little, revealing the unexpected decisions that millions of people make every day. Looking at some of the most paradoxical aspects of life below the poverty line - why the poor need to borrow in order to save, why incentives that seem effective to us may not be for them, and why, despite being more risk-taking than high financiers, they start businesses but rarely grow them - Banerjee and Duflo offer a new understanding of the surprising way the world really works. Winner of the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011

Handbook of Field Experiments provides tactics on how to conduct experimental research, also presenting a comprehensive catalog on new results from research and areas that remain to be explored. This updated addition to the series includes an entire chapters on field experiments, the politics and practice of social experiments, the methodology and practice of RCTs, and the econometrics of randomized experiments. These topics apply to a wide variety of fields, from politics, to education, and firm productivity, providing readers with a resource that sheds light on timely issues, such as robustness and external validity. Separating itself from circumscribed debates of specialists, this volume surpasses in usefulness the many journal articles and narrowly-defined books written by practitioners.

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 behaviour 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.

Handbook of Field Experiments, Volume Two explains how to conduct experimental research, presents a catalog of research to date, and describes which areas remain to be explored. The new volume includes sections on field experiments in education in developing countries, how to design social protection programs, a section on how to combat poverty, and updates on data relating to the impact and determinants of health levels in low-income countries. Separating itself from circumscribed debates of specialists, this volume surpasses the many journal articles and narrowly-defined books written by practitioners. This ongoing series will be of particular interest to scholars working with experimental methods. Users will find results from politics, education, and more.