Apr 23, 2011
New Development Books
The title of this post can be parsed either as “new (development books)” or as “(new development) books” since both of these are new books about development economics and are also books that deal with the new style of development economics, focusing on micro / individual level studies and in particular rigorous (usually randomized) evaluations of possible interventions. This tells us what works — and how much it costs per unit of inprovement in outcomes.
The first book, which came out about a week ago, is More than Good Intentions by Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel. The writing style is very approachable, so it has been described (in a good way) as the perfect book for workers in this field to give to their parents / friends / SOs / etc. as an introduction to what they do. Each chapter focuses on a different topic (health; savings; and so on) and discusses real case studies (with real people) from the field as well as summarizing the recent academic research in the area. They are particularly interested in behavioral “nudges” which of course I’m sympathetic to. Recommended!
The second book comes out this monday (the 26th), so it’s an opportune time for the genre! This one is Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. [disclaimer: I know the authors of both books personally, and have coauthored with Karlan, but I have no financial interest in either book] It focuses more specifically on poverty, as one would guess from the title, although to some extent that is the central goal for all of development economics*. Again there are explanations and summaries of the randomized evaluation method, which the authors (and Karlan) are pioneers in the use of within this context. Unfortunately I haven’t actually seen the book yet, but I’m hoping to soon. Knowing their other work, it will be highly insightful.
*one of my pet peeves is that there isn’t more serious discussion of well-being (utility) in development economics, and indeed throughout economics, but that’s hardly a criticism of these books — nor is it totally ignored in these
I recently had a friend (a very thoughtful friend) recommend another book entitled Walk Out Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now (Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze) which has just come out in paperback so it almost meets the criteria of being new. From the description it is not development economics, but more development philosophy but I’d be interested in what you and your colleagues think of it or even just to know if it’s on anyone else’s radar screen.
I haven’t heard of that book, nor seen it discussed in the econ world (although it may well have been). Looks like it might be a nice complement to the evaluation books, in that it discusses case studies and pathways that seem to have worked in various communities, and hence are natural candidates to try elsewhere and study more thoroughly. May also add to the debate in which some folks (including Sachs) believe that the best approach is to do a lot at once in a given village, vs others who prefer a modular approach (which is easier to evaluate rigorously!). The former method makes sense if education works best on healthy students with decent job opportunities and savings mechanisms, etc — but those may not be the folks who need it most.
Also thought I’d mention that there’s an excerpt of the Banerjee / Duflo book available at Foreign Policy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/more_than_1_billion_people_are_hungry_in_the_world?page=full