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The experts generally fall into two camps when it comes to alleviating global poverty: those who believe we simply need to spend more money in more places; and those who think that too many billions have already been spent too inefficiently and ineffectively, requiring a new and smarter approach to aid.
In a new book called More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics Is Helping to Solve Global Poverty, Freakonomics blog contributor Dean Karlan, a development economist at Yale, and Jacob Appel, a researcher at Innovations for Poverty Action, describe the split:
Each camp claims prominent economists as adherents: Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, an adviser to the United Nations, and Bill Easterly of New York University, a former senior official at the World Bank. Sachs and his supporters regale us with picture-perfect transformational stories. Easterly and the other side counter with an equally steady supply of ghastly the-world-is-corrupt-and-everything-fails anecdotes. The result? Disagreement and uncertainty, which leads to stagnation and inertia — in short, a train wreck. And no way forward.
Karlan and Appel argue for a third way, one that draws from behavioral economics and relies on rigorous evaluation. To wit:
Three questions organize our discussions. First: what is the root cause of the problem? Using both behavioral and traditional economics to answer this question is exactly the first prong of our attack in this book. Then two more questions: Does the “idea” at hand, whether a government policy, NGO intervention, or business, actually solve the problem? And how much better off is the world because of it? Using rigorous evaluations to answer these two questions together is the second prong of our attack.
Karlan and Appel have agreed to answer your questions about their book and, more broadly, development economics and poverty. So fire away in the comments section below. You can now read their answers here.
And here’s the table of contents from their book to prime the pump.
1. Introduction: The Monks and the Fish
2. To Work Against Poverty: How We Do What We Do
3. To Buy: Doubling the Number of Families with a Safety Net
4. To Borrow: Why the Taxi Driver Didn’t Take a Loan
5. To Pursue Happiness: Having Better Things to Do
6. To Cooperate in Groups: What About the Weakness of the Crowd?
7. To Save: The Unfun Option
8. To Farm: Something from Nothing
9. To Learn: The Importance of Showing Up
10. To Stay Healthy: From Broken Legs to Parasites
11. To Mate: The Naked Truth
12. To Give: The Takeaway
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Poverty is relative. Those who are considered poor today, may have been considered to have been the norm for all of human history until say 100 years ago (arbitrary date). Therefore, to me the argument being made seems to be “hey there are a lot of people better today off than others, this is not fair”. I do not accept this argument. Some might say that I am heartless. I am heartless for being willing to accept people living the way they have for 1000s of years?
My question to you is why can’t we break out of this feudal paradigm? Call it capitalism, call it social Darwinism, it’s really just a feudal system with a slightly less birthright bias.
What is holding us back? Is it the poor just aren’t motivated enough to not be poor or is there an incentive at the top of the heap not to let anyone else get there to share in the spoils?
Obviously both are a factor but can one be singled out as the overwhelming contributor?
1) Do you think that a free liberal arts college education (perhaps via DVDS, using some of the greatest professors in the world) would make any dramatic difference? Is it possible that just having a bigger picture of the world, a bigger dream of what could be, could change things for people?
2) Of all the things you have seen and studied, is there one thing that, over and over, reveals itself as the very best way forward against poverty?
3) If we know that a particular piece of jungle can only successfully sustain X number of animals, is there a danger that our moral imperatives will place us in a “Lifeboat” situation? That is, if there is not some sort of attrition, do we risk having so many people that we can no longer suitably sustain all of them? Or is that the false dilemma I hope it is?
Hi, what can someone with a low income (like a student) but high interest in contributing to global poverty do to help with comparatively small donations of time and/or money? Are there some options that stood out as far above the others in this respect?
It is hard to say that all the people on the Earth need to live like some notion of yours or mine, but surely we are all our brother’s and sister’s keepers. Why? Not because the Bible says so, but because it makes for a better outcome for all concerned.
Every person has to make this decision early in life: A) Is it better to be rich in a country of poor, or B) to spend some time and resources to raise up the poor?
How do you go about alleviating poverty in a place like Haiti, where you have not just a failed state but a non-state without any coherent infrastructure or market place?
“what is THE root cause of the problem?”
How can you know for sure that there is one? Does the mere fact that you are posing the question in that manner already presuppose some of the answers? Shouldn’t this question be more open-ended, less skewed and directed? Is it possible that there is no “root cause” — that no agent, nothing specific is at work, but that it is just the unpremeditated result of an imponderable number of connections between a hodge-podge of human actions?
The book sounds interesting. What prompted you to go into development economics?
I would guess that material poverty is associated also with culture and traditional ways of doing things. In trying to overcome poverty we may face the uncomfortable position of destroying traditional cultures and replacing them with “modern” cultural values.
What are you views on this? Should attempts to alleviate poverty seek to do so without destroying traditional cultures? Should they attempt to reconcile and reform traditional cultures, update them so that they are more productive? Are there concerns that such attempts to reform – to make society mimic a foreign developed society – could be construed as imperialistic?
(For example many poorer countries have very high fertility rates. To avoid population explosion fertility rates need to fall. They usually do so, but that might run contrary to traditional ideas about the roles of women and the virtues of large families.)