Review Essay: Poor Economics (Banerjee/Duflo)

Résumé ou Introduction

“After all, we have spent billions of dollars on aid. […] Has it done any good? And sadly, we don’t know. And worst of all, we will never know.” (Duflo 2010, 01:37)

Poverty alleviation is a huge humanitarian challenge and also the supreme discipline of some economists. The effort to fight poverty had a mixed success so far and scholars claim different reasons for that outcome (cf. Besley 2012). In “Poor Economics”, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo avoid the often polemic ‘Sachs vs. Easterly’ aid debate and promise a “radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty”: They make a convincing case about learning on the lives of the poor and the unique choices they have to face in their lives. Banerjee/Duflo understand how the poor perceive their conditions and come to the decision they make and are therefore able to craft better strategies and interventions that actually help the poor and do not produce unintended consequences. By doing that, they deliberately target the micro-level and leave out the level of politics or institutions, which is somewhat problematic, to search effective approaches in answers of the smaller questions.
This essay is structured in the following way: After an introduction to the analysis (2.) and an overview of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), the main method of Banerjee/Duflo (2.1), the analysis will provide an assessment of key examples of the two scholars’ research (2.2). Subsequently, an evaluation of limitations (2.3) and shortcomings (2.4) of the book will be conducted. By evaluating the approach and findings of “Poor Economics”, the essay will be able to compare it with other scholarly works (3.). A conclusion (4.) will summarize the review and end with a personal take on what has been learned through studying the book.