More Than Good Intentions

by Karlan, Dean

• ISBN13: 9780525951896
• ISBN10: 052595189X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-14
• Publisher: E P Dutton

Summary

A leading economist and researcher report from the front lines of a revolution in solving the world's most persistent problem. When it comes to global poverty, people are passionate and polarized. At one extreme: We just need to invest more resources. At the other: We've thrown billions down a sinkhole over the last fifty years and accomplished almost nothing. Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel present an entirely new approach that blazes an optimistic and realistic trail between these two extremes. In this pioneering book Karlan and Appel combine behavioral economics with worldwide field research. They take readers with them into villages across Africa, India, South America, and the Philippines, where economic theory collides with real life. They show how small changes in banking, insurance, health care, and other development initiatives that take into account human irrationality can drastically improve the well-being of poor people everywhere. We in the developed world have found ways to make our own lives profoundly better. We use new tools to spend smarter, save more, eat better, and lead lives more like the ones we imagine. These tools can do the same for the impoverished. Karlan and Appel's research, and those of some close colleagues, show exactly how. In America alone, individual donors contribute over two hundred billion to charity annually, three times as much as corporations, foundations, and bequests combined. This book provides a new way to understand what really works to reduce poverty; in so doing, it reveals how to better invest those billions and begin transforming the well-being of the world.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note	p. ix
Introduction: The Monks and the Fish	p. 1
To Work Against Poverty: How We Do What We Do	p. 23
To Buy: Doubling the Number of Families with a Safety Net	p. 39
To Borrow: Why the Taxi Driver Didn't Take a Loan	p. 55
To Pursue Happiness: Having Better Things to Do	p. 85
To Cooperate In Groups: What About the Weakness of the Crowd?	p. 109
To Save: The Unfun Option	p. 143
To Farm: Something from Nothing	p. 167
To Learn: The Importance of Showing Up	p. 191
To Stay Healthy: From Broken Legs to Parasites	p. 223
To Mate: The Naked Truth	p. 253
To Give: The Takeaway	p. 269
Notes	p. 277
Acknowledgments	p. 289
Index	p. 295
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