Rich politics, not poor economics

Prof Abhijit Banerjee and Prof Esther Duflo have jointly written a new book on “Poor Economics”. Nothing more to say, but still poor understanding or rich politics is actually derails the good economics into poor economics.

Poor economics is poorly understood. Take the review in the HT newspaper:

• So much for the method, what about the object of their scrutiny? The myriad ‘small’ answers to the ‘small’ questions posed by the researchers draw out a few broad themes. The poor lack information to make decisions. The poor have more decisions to make than the rich. Both the State and the market tend to keep the poor out. The rich do not conspire to perpetuate indigence. And finally, defeatism does defeat. In themselves, these inferences ought to shape society’s attitude towards poverty, and, to an extent, they form the guiding principles of most social welfare systems.

Also read the Authors interview here.