FT Business Book of the Year

Best business books

All the books longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award

Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo

Poor Economics

A reaction against desk-bound mathematical theorising in general, the books under review present a compelling picture of young can-do economists who are prepared to jet off to urban slums and isolated villages to put their ideas into practice. The results are fascinating. — Read the complete FT review

Synopsis

Why would a man in Morocco who doesn’t have enough to eat buy a television? Why do the poorest people in India spend 7 percent of their food budget on sugar? Does having lots of children actually make you poorer?

This eye-opening book overturns the myths about what it is like to live on very little, revealing the unexpected decisions that millions of people make every day. Looking at some of the most paradoxical aspects of life below the poverty line - why the poor need to borrow in order to save, why incentives that seem effective to us may not be for them, and why, despite being more risk-taking than high financiers, they start businesses but rarely grow them - Banerjee and Duflo offer a new understanding of the surprising way the world really works.