Readings

Required Textbook

[Poor Economics] = Buy at Amazon Banerjee, Abhijit, and Esther Duflo. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. PublicAffairs, 2011. ISBN: 9781586487980. [Preview with Google Books]

Starred readings are required. Additional readings are optional but will aid in your understanding of the lecture material.

LEC # TOPICS READINGS
Introduction
1 Introduction I: What this class is about! No readings
2 Introduction II: What is a poverty trap? *Chapter 1 and pp. 19–22 in Chapter 2 in [Poor Economics].
3 Introduction III: Learning what works: The role of experiments

*Rodrik, Dani. "Jeff Sachs Vindicated." Dani Rodrik's weblog. January 15, 2008. Post and discussion.

*Over, Mead. "Jeff Sachs Not Vindicated." Global Health Policy Blog. January 18, 2008. Post and discussion.

Kristof, Nicholas. "George Clooney Answers Your Questions about Malaria," The New York Times, February 8, 2011.
Consumption
4 Food I: The nature of famine

*Buy at Amazon Sen, Amartya. "The Great Bengal Famine." In Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780198284635.

Krugman, Paul. "Droughts, Floods and Food," The New York Times, February 6, 2011.
5 Food II: Is there a nutrition based trap-the demand for food and calories

*Chapter 2 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 22–8.

*Levitt, Steven D. "The Indiana Jones of Economics, Part I, Part II, Part III." Freakonomics.com. May 7, 2008.
6 Food III: Is there a nutrition based poverty trap-the hidden trap *Chapter 2 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 28–40.
Health
7 Health I: Delivering healthcare, a case study from India *Banerjee, Abhijit, and Esther Duflo. "Improving Health Care Delivery in India: Udaipur Case Study." (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF - 1.4MB)
8 Health II: Low hanging fruit: Understanding healthcare behavior in developing countries Chapter 3 in [Poor Economics].
Education
9 Education I: Setting the stage

Buy at MIT Press *Buy at Amazon Easterly, William. "Educated for What?" In The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. MIT Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780262550420.

*Buy at Amazon Case, Anne. "The Primacy of Education." In Understanding Poverty. Edited by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Roland Benabou, and Dilip Mookherjee. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780195305203. [Preview with Google Books]
10 Education II: How to make schools work for the poor: Pratham's experience *Banerjee, Abhijit, Shawn Cole, et al. "Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India." (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, no. 3 (2007): 1235–64.
11 Education III: Beyond supply and demand wars *Chapter 4 in [Poor Economics].
Family
12 Family I: What drives fertility decisions *Chapter 5 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 103–23.
13 Family II: Household model and discrimination against girls

*Chapter 5 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 123–9.

*Sen, Amartya. "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing." The New York Review of Books 37, no. 20 (1990).
Insurance
14 Risk and Insurance I *Besley, Timothy. "Nonmarket Institutions for Credit and Risk Sharing in Low Income Countries." Journal of Economic Perspectives 9, no. 3 (1995): 115–27.
15 Risk and Insurance II *Chapter 6 in [Poor Economics].
Credit
16 Credit I: Microcredit under strain

Banerjee, Abhijit, et. al. "Microcredit Is Not the Enemy," Financial Times. December 13, 2010.

S. D. "Big Trouble for Microfinance," The Economist, December 2, 2010.

Yunus, Muhammad. "Sacrificing Microcredit for Megaprofits." The New York Times, January 14, 2011.
17 Credit II: The economics of lending to the poor *Chapter 7 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 157–68.
18 Credit II: The economics of lending to the poor (cont.)

*Chapter 7 in [Poor Economics]. pp. 168–80.

Banjerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan. "The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation." (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF) Working paper, 2009.
Savings
19 Savings I *Buy at Amazon Rutherford, Stuart, and Sukhwinder Singh Arora. Chapters 1 and 2 in The Poor and Their Money: Microfinance From a Twenty-First Century Consumer's Perspective. Practical Action, 2010. ISBN: 9781853396885.
20 Savings II *Chapter 8 in [Poor Economics].
Entrepreneurship
21 The poor and their businesses *Chapter 9 in [Poor Economics].
22 The poor and their businesses (cont.) *Chapter 9 in [Poor Economics].
Political Economy
23 Institutions I: The big picture

*Buy at Amazon Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. "Understanding Prosperity and Poverty: Geography, Institutions, and The Reversal of Fortune." In Understanding Poverty. Edited by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Roland Benabou, and Dilip Mookherjee. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780195305203. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Engerman, Stanley L., and Kenneth Sokoloff. "Colonialism, Inequality and Long-Run Paths of Development." In Understanding Poverty. Edited by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Roland Benabou, and Dilip Mookherjee. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780195305203. [Preview with Google Books]
24 Institutions II: The very small pictures *Chapter 10 in [Poor Economics].
25 Policies, politics No readings