Tag Archives | poverty

Paul Polak, SunPower and good news for poor farmers

By on May 24, 2013 in Energy, People

Paul Polak is an accomplished man and a very busy man.  After spending a few decades researching and trying out various innovations to lift poor farmers out of poverty, he wrote Out of Poverty in 2008. Making the treadle pump affordable to low income farmers was among his earliest invention. IDE (International Development Enterprises) is possibly [...]

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In praise of slums. Or why millions of Indians choose to live in urban squalor

By on August 23, 2012 in Migration

If you saw a provocative title like this on Twitter, you would click on it, right? I’m glad I did. Just like you’ll be glad you clicked through to this story, or so I hope. Hint: the operative word in the title is “choose”. As  nonpartisan public policy American nonprofits go, New America Foundation is fairly new [...]

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Hunger Alleviation Lessons from Belo Horizonte

By on April 12, 2012 in Govt, Policy, Poverty Econ

[Editor's Note: (Sep 12, 2012): According to this Newslaundry editorial, Samar Halamkar (on whose column I based this post) might have indulged in plagiarism. Until I figure out what action I need to take, I've made no changes to my original post.] “Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of [...]

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RSBY: a government initiative that (Gasp!) seems to work

By on February 22, 2012 in Govt, Healthcare, Poverty Econ

[Editor's Note: RSBY expands to Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (Hindi for "National Health Insurance Policy"). The brainchild of IAS officer and Director General of Ministry of Labour and Employment, Anil Swarup, the scheme was formally launched in 2008 to provide health insurance coverage for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. I first heard Anil Swarup speak on [...]

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Psychology of Savings – How the Poor Save to Buy Fertilizer

By on October 21, 2011 in Agri, Poverty Econ

In chapter 8 (Saving Brick by Brick) of Poor Economics, Banerjee and Duflo delve into the subject of savings – the psychology behind why a majority of the poor find it incredibly hard to save and how they are caught in a catch-22 situation. Savings is less attractive for the poor, because for them the [...]

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For the poor, what could possibly be more important than food?

By on July 14, 2011 in Poverty Econ

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s book Poor Economics continues to live up to its promise. If you’ve missed it, here’s the teaser excerpts I captured last week. I’ve been tweeting insights from the book fairly regularly (using the hashtag #banerjeeduflo). But not all insights can be packaged into 140 character tweets. So here are some [...]

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Teaser on Banerjee-Duflo’s Poor Economics

By on July 7, 2011 in Poverty Econ

I cannot recall the last time I looked forward so much to reading a book on economics. But after reading the reviews of Poor Economics (by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo) and hearing from friends who’ve read it, I find myself with a hopeful anticipation. I’m including excerpts from the book’s foreword which will hopefully [...]

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Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor: Who Gains, Who Loses, and Why?

By on March 19, 2011 in Poverty Econ

As I researched the back story on Babajob, I learned that the main inspiration for Sean Blagsvedt (Babajob CEO) was a Duke University research study. The study [Escaping Poverty and Becoming Poor: Who Gains, Who Loses, and Why?[PDF link], authored by Dr. Anirudh Krishna in 2004, looked at data from 35 villages in Rajasthan over [...]

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