Poor Economics Abhijit V. Banerjee And Duflo: Summary

In the third chapter of their book Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo discuss the economic and psychological explanations for why poor people find themselves in a health-based cycle of poverty. In short, Banerjee and Duflo find that, like food, preventative healthcare is available and affordable to the world’s poor; however, people still choose to spend their money on other items, hurting their chances of escaping poverty. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why this phenomenon occurs (poor information, a general mistrust of medicine/doctors, the inherent difficulty in caring for one’s heath, etc.), but it seems to all boil down to motivation. Generally, people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, are less likely to