Steven Deobald reviewed Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee
Review of 'Poor Economics' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
"Poor Economics", indeed. Reducing every single human behaviour, from individual charitable donations to government policy, down to a dollar figure gets exhausting by the end of this book. It's as if economists feel the need to prop up the pseudoscience of Economics by scrubbing what little compassion or humanity they might be tempted to include in a book like this. Instead, the health and well-being of families in "developing countries" is reduced to a variable in RoI calculations.
I commend the authors for attempting to step outside the artificial western left/right political spectrum but it's safe to say this is a failed attempt. Instead, the writing waffles. On one side, it appeals to socialist ideals with "facts" presented without a single mention of what variables were actually controlled for in their pseudo-experiments, if any. On the other side, the language is clearly targeted at a dying generation of right-wing ideologues …
"Poor Economics", indeed. Reducing every single human behaviour, from individual charitable donations to government policy, down to a dollar figure gets exhausting by the end of this book. It's as if economists feel the need to prop up the pseudoscience of Economics by scrubbing what little compassion or humanity they might be tempted to include in a book like this. Instead, the health and well-being of families in "developing countries" is reduced to a variable in RoI calculations.
I commend the authors for attempting to step outside the artificial western left/right political spectrum but it's safe to say this is a failed attempt. Instead, the writing waffles. On one side, it appeals to socialist ideals with "facts" presented without a single mention of what variables were actually controlled for in their pseudo-experiments, if any. On the other side, the language is clearly targeted at a dying generation of right-wing ideologues the authors try to sway with a few specious graphs and a tone imbued with a horrifying objectivity. "Poverty" is never identified as a state of being entirely applicable to every human on the planet. Banerjee and Duflo never even approach the idea that this "poverty" is something which might afflict them tomorrow. The language is consistently the "us-and-them" terminology of "developing nations" and "poor communities". Even the World Bank doesn't use language like this anymore. The authors spend an inordinate amount of time making the case that "the poor" are not actually just lazy and incompetent. Believe it or not, dear reader, the poor may not actually deserve their fate! Yes. Enlightening.
At a high level, it's really hard to say what the take-aways from this book even are. "Economics: Yes, it is still complicated an counter-intuitive"? "Randomized Controlled Trials: At least they're better than 20th Century Economics Witchcraft"? The last chapter is literally entitled "In place of a sweeping conclusion" and the entire book feels this way. A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, you say? Can't say I found this radical rethinking anywhere in here. It's a peculiar collection of haphazard pseudo-scientific evidence -- a long, dry summary of whitepapers. A boring book would have been preferable, though, and I wish the authors had limited themselves to summarizing whitepapers.
It's always especially frustrating to read a book which I largely agree with only to be disgusted by the patronizing tone of the author(s). This was a frustrating read and I don't recommend it.