Good Economics for Hard Times
Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo
First published 2019PublicAffairs US first edition, 12 November 2019, ISBN 9781610399500
What it is.
The same two authors on immigration, trade, automation and growth. The line we quote on the home page, that economics is too important to be left to economists, is theirs, and it is from this book.
The argument is that economics keeps asking the wrong question. The energy goes into producing more growth when the more useful question is how to allocate what already exists. They work through immigration, trade, automation and growth, and a lot of settled thinking does not survive contact with the evidence. The part that stuck with me is the welfare research. I had always believed that giving people money does not make them work less, and this is where I found the studies.
Working summary · based on Toward's reading notes
The strongest objection
A few points of sustained growth lift more people out of poverty than any clever reallocation. My answer is that it might, and it has not. We got the growth and inequality grew with it.
Working summary · based on Toward's reading notes
Why it is here.
The line this site quotes on its home page is theirs and it comes from this book. Economics is too important to be left to economists. That is the argument for everything here, that these ideas are useful to ordinary people and the field has done a poor job of handing them over.
Working summary · based on Toward's records
Where it sits.
No goal on this site is built on this one.
Read it after Poor Economics, which is the fieldwork it rests on, and beside Why Nations Fail, which puts the weight on institutions instead of on households.
Working summary · based on Toward's records