Poor Economics – rethinking poverty & the ways to end it

Source:http://cloud2.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=abhijit_book_feature

GDN Board Member holds panel discussion on his book The book is a summary of work done in the field of Development Economics by the authors Professor Abhijit V. Banerjee, Member of GDN’s Board, conducted a panel discussion on his recent book, ‘Poor Economics – rethinking poverty & the ways to end it’ at Alliance Française in New Delhi on 20 July, 2011. The panel included authors Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, discussant Nandan Nilekani and moderator Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The book launched early this year is a summary of 15 years of work done by the authors. As Professor Banerjee puts it, it is an “attempt to distil what the two professors of Development Economics have learnt during their careers after closely studying poverty in five continents and searching for possible solutions to reduce poverty over the years”. Professor Abhijit V. Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while co-author Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT. The two authors and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab in 2003. Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, moderator of the discussion and President of the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi said, “This book is a great landmark in Development Economics in the 21st Century.” It has been further described as “A marvellously insightful book by two outstanding researchers on the real nature of poverty” by Nobel Prize winner Professor Amartya Sen. Nandan Nilekani, leading software entrepreneur, co-founder of Infosys and chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), also present in the panel labeled the book as “very significant and crucial”. He elaborated by saying that, “The book emphasizes on being open minded about policies and looking at the ground level evidence.” During the debate and the discussion that followed, Nilekani asserted that, “Policy effectiveness should be measured by reality and one must keep the ideology aside and see the gaps.” He argued that policies that do not work on the ground level are pseudo policies. The panelists also stressed how most people believe that the only way things can improve is through institutions. “The key message instead is to get into small interventions that can create a ripple effect and bring the desired change.” To this Professor Banerjee added, “No one person or institution can alone be held responsible for eradicating poverty. It is the collective responsibility of all individuals to play a role.” The authors, through their book ‘Poor Economics’, argue that most anti-poverty policies have failed over the years because of an inadequate understanding of poverty. Esther Duflo remarked, “The battle against poverty can be won, but it will take patience, careful thinking and a willingness to learn from evidence.”