This volume brings together essays by thirty-four leading economists about the most important things they have learnt from their research that relate to poverty. The essays range from the impact of colonialism and globalization to the future of micro-credit and the quest for new vaccines.

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Bénabou and Dilip Mookherjee: Introduction 1: Angus Deaton: Measuring Poverty PART I: The Causes of Poverty 2: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, & James Robinson: Understanding Prosperity and Poverty: Geography, Institutions, and the Reversal of Fortune 3: Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth L. Sokoloff: Colonialism, Inequality, And Long-Run Paths Of Development 4: Thomas Piketty: The Kuznets Curve: Yesterday and Tomorrow 5: Philippe Aghion & Beatriz Armendàriz de Aghion: A New Growth Approach to Poverty Alleviation 6: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee: Globalization and All That 7: Pranab Bardhan: The Global Economy and the Poor 8: Mukesh Eswaran & Ashok Kotwal: The Role of Agriculture in Development 9: T. Paul Schultz: Fertility and Income 10: Mukesh Eswaran: Fertility in Developing Countries 11: Jean-Jacques Laffont: Corruption and Development 12: Edward Miguel: Ethnic Diversity and Poverty Reduction PART II: How Should We Go About Fighting Poverty? 13: Emmanuel Saez: Redistribution toward Low Incomes in Richer Countries 14: Martin Ravallion: Transfers and Safety Nets in Poor Countries: Revisiting the Trade-Offs and Policy Options 15: Dilip Mookherjee: Poverty Persistence and Design of Antipoverty Policies 16: Christopher Udry: Child Labor 17: Kaushik Basu: Policy Dilemmas for Controlling Child Labor 18: Anne Case: The Primacy of Education 19: Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak: Public Goods and Economic Development 20: Jean Tirole: Intellectual Property and Health in Developing Countries 21: Michael Kremer: Public Policies to Stimulate Development of Vaccines for Neglected Diseases 22: Jonathan Morduch: Microinsurance: The Next Revolution? 23: Robert M. Townsend: 23) Credit, Intermediation, and Poverty Reduction PART III: New Ways of Thinking About Poverty 24: Esther Duflo: Poor but Rational? 25: Sendhil Mullainathan: Better Choices to Reduce Poverty 26: Kaivan Munshi: Nonmarket Institutions 27: Glenn C. Loury: Racial Stigma: Toward a New Paradigm for Discrimination Theory 28: Debraj Ray: Aspirations, Poverty and Economic Change

"A serious examination of where we stand and what we need to do."--Nicholas Kristof, The New York Review of Books "Mass poverty is mankind's oldest, yet still most pressing, problem. Understanding Poverty describes the attack that economists are making to understand it on many different fronts. Every reader of the essays in this superb volume will appreciate the currrent excitement of development economics and the enormous progress it has made in the last two decades."--George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 "A serious examination of where we stand and what we need to do."--Nicholas Kristof, The New York Review of Books "Mass poverty is mankind's oldest, yet still most pressing, problem. Understanding Poverty describes the attack that economists are making to understand it on many different fronts. Every reader of the essays in this superb volume will appreciate the currrent excitement of development economics and the enormous progress it has made in the last two decades."--George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001

Selling point: Brings together twenty-eight essays by some of the world leaders in the field Selling point: The essays cover a wide array of topics, including the causes of poverty, policies, and the way economists think about poverty Selling point: Essays are written with the aim of presenting the latest and the most sophisticated in economics without any recourse to jargon or technical language.

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics and Director, Poverty Action Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1993. He holds a PhD from Harvard University, an MA from Jawaharlal University, and a BSc from the University of Calcutta. Roland Bénabou is Professor of Economic and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He holds a PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Instite of Technology and Engineering diplomas from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts at Chaussés in Paris. Dilip Mookherjee is Professor of Economics at Boston University, where he has taught since 1995. He has also been Director of the Institute for Economic Development there since 1998. He studied Economics at Presidency College, Calcutta, the Delhi School of Economics, and the London School of Economics.

Selling point: Brings together twenty-eight essays by some of the world leaders in the field Selling point: The essays cover a wide array of topics, including the causes of poverty, policies, and the way economists think about poverty Selling point: Essays are written with the aim of presenting the latest and the most sophisticated in economics without any recourse to jargon or technical language.