Poor economics: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty

This title comes from the award-winning founders of the unique and remarkable Abdul Latfi Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory at MIT, a transformative reappraisal of the world of the extreme poor, their lives, desires and frustrations. Billions of government dollars, and thousands of charitable organizations and NGOs are dedicated to helping the world's poor. But much of the work they do is based on assumptions that are untested generalizations at best, flat out harmful misperceptions at worst. Banerjee and Duflo have pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics. Work based on these principles, supervised by the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, is being carried out in dozens of countries.…