How China Escaped the Poverty Trap
How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

Author: Yuen Yuen Ang

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1501706403

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WINNER OF THE 2017 PETER KATZENSTEIN BOOK PRIZE "BEST OF BOOKS IN 2017" BY FOREIGN AFFAIRS WINNER OF THE 2018 VIVIAN ZELIZER PRIZE BEST BOOK AWARD IN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap truly offers game-changing ideas for the analysis and implementation of socio-economic development and should have a major impact across many social sciences." ― Zelizer Best Book in Economic Sociology Prize Committee Acclaimed as "game changing" and "field shifting," How China Escaped the Poverty Trap advances a new paradigm in the political economy of development and sheds new light on China's rise. How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: "stimulate growth first," "build good institutions first," or "some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth." Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. Instead, she launches a new paradigm grounded in complex adaptive systems, which embraces the reality of interdependence and humanity's capacity to innovate. Combining this original lens with more than 400 interviews with Chinese bureaucrats and entrepreneurs, Ang systematically reenacts the complex process that turned China from a communist backwater into a global juggernaut in just 35 years. Contrary to popular misconceptions, she shows that what drove China's great transformation was not centralized authoritarian control, but "directed improvisation"—top-down directions from Beijing paired with bottom-up improvisation among local officials. Her analysis reveals two broad lessons on development. First, transformative change requires an adaptive governing system that empowers ground-level actors to create new solutions for evolving problems. Second, the first step out of the poverty trap is to "use what you have"—harnessing existing resources to kick-start new markets, even if that means defying first-world norms. Bold and meticulously researched, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap opens up a whole new avenue of thinking for scholars, practitioners, and anyone seeking to build adaptive systems.

The Economics of Poverty Traps
The Economics of Poverty Traps

Author: Christopher B. Barrett

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 022657430X

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What circumstances or behaviors turn poverty into a cycle that perpetuates across generations? The answer to this question carries especially important implications for the design and evaluation of policies and projects intended to reduce poverty. Yet a major challenge analysts and policymakers face in understanding poverty traps is the sheer number of mechanisms—not just financial, but also environmental, physical, and psychological—that may contribute to the persistence of poverty all over the world. The research in this volume explores the hypothesis that poverty is self-reinforcing because the equilibrium behaviors of the poor perpetuate low standards of living. Contributions explore the dynamic, complex processes by which households accumulate assets and increase their productivity and earnings potential, as well as the conditions under which some individuals, groups, and economies struggle to escape poverty. Investigating the full range of phenomena that combine to generate poverty traps—gleaned from behavioral, health, and resource economics as well as the sociology, psychology, and environmental literatures—chapters in this volume also present new evidence that highlights both the insights and the limits of a poverty trap lens. The framework introduced in this volume provides a robust platform for studying well-being dynamics in developing economies.

Poverty Traps
Poverty Traps

Author: Samuel Bowles

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-05-31

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0691170932

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Much popular belief--and public policy--rests on the idea that those born into poverty have it in their power to escape. But the persistence of poverty and ever-growing economic inequality around the world have led many economists to seriously question the model of individual economic self-determination when it comes to the poor. In Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven Durlauf, Karla Hoff, and the book's other contributors argue that there are many conditions that may trap individuals, groups, and whole economies in intractable poverty. For the first time the editors have brought together the perspectives of economics, economic history, and sociology to assess what we know--and don't know--about such traps. Among the sources of the poverty of nations, the authors assign a primary role to social and political institutions, ranging from corruption to seemingly benign social customs such as kin systems. Many of the institutions that keep nations poor have deep roots in colonial history and persist long after their initial causes are gone. Neighborhood effects--influences such as networks, role models, and aspirations--can create hard-to-escape pockets of poverty even in rich countries. Similar individuals in dissimilar socioeconomic environments develop different preferences and beliefs that can transmit poverty or affluence from generation to generation. The book presents evidence of harmful neighborhood effects and discusses policies to overcome them, with attention to the uncertainty that exists in evaluating such policies.

Escaping the Poverty Trap
Escaping the Poverty Trap

Author: Amartya Sen

Publisher: IDB

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 9781931003568

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Basing their discussions on the concept of "intergenerational transmission of poverty"--the "process by which poor parents pass on poverty and disadvantage to their children," in the words of editor Moran (until recently a senior economist with the International Development Bank's Sustainable Development Department)--five essays reflect on political, philosophical, social, and other dimensions of investing in early childhood in Latin America. The essays include Amartya Sen's discussion of early childhood investment within the context of the overall development process, as well explorations of the relationship between health, nutrition, and cognitive and social dimensions of poverty; the impact of early childhood investment on economic growth and equity; and the role of the state in marshalling resources for early childhood investment. Distributed by Johns Hopkins U. Press. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Escaping the 9-5 Trap
Escaping the 9-5 Trap

Author: Jesse Frimpong

Publisher:

Published: 2021-06-16

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13:

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Welcome to an improved way of life. You know what is no longer feasible? Going to school Working a 9-5 until the age of 65 And retiring on social security. It is an outdated way of survival. Millions of people are finally realizing that there are investments that they can make today, which will set them up for true financial freedom. The problem is that most people don't know where to start. At the age of 21 I had worked my last job, the investments I made at 18 finally took over the dependence I had for a job. THIS BOOK IS THE START YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR! The blueprint is ready, now I'm turning over the keys to you.

Financial Exclusion and the Poverty Trap
Financial Exclusion and the Poverty Trap

Author: Pamela Lenton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-02-27

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1136626395

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This book addresses one of the main causes of poverty, financial exclusion – the inability to access finance from the high-street banks. People on low or irregular incomes typically have to resort to loan sharks, ‘doorstep lenders’ and other informal credit sources, a predicament which makes escape from the poverty trap doubly difficult. This book will be vital reading for those concerned with social policy, microfinance and anti-poverty policies in industrialised countries and around the world.

One Illness Away
One Illness Away

Author: Anirudh Krishna

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-08-26

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0191625043

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Why does poverty persist? A critical, but so far ignored, part of the answer lies in the fact that poverty is regularly created. Large numbers of people are escaping poverty, but large numbers are concurrently falling into chronic poverty. This book presents the first large-scale examination of the reasons why people fall into poverty and how they escape it in diverse contexts. Drawing upon personal interviews with 35,000 households in different parts of India, Kenya, Uganda, Peru, and the United States, it takes you on an illustrative journey, filled with facts, analyses, and the life stories of people who fell into abject poverty and others who managed to escape their seemingly predetermined fates. Letting a farmhand's son or daughter remain a farmhand, even though she or he is potentially the next Einstein, is a tragedy that poor people witness time after time. Remedying this situation is crucial for making poverty history. This book addresses how equal opportunity can be promoted and how slum-born millionaires can arise in reality. Speaking to Barack Obama's message for more effective health care, One Illness Away feeds directly into current public debates. Learning from thousands of individual experiences, this book presents a clear agenda for action and provides more effective ways of keeping people out of micro poverty traps.

Poor Economics
Poor Economics

Author: Abhijit V. Banerjee

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1610391608

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The winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics upend the most common assumptions about how economics works in this gripping and disruptive portrait of how poor people actually live. Why do the poor borrow to save? Why do they miss out on free life-saving immunizations, but pay for unnecessary drugs? In Poor Economics, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two award-winning MIT professors, answer these questions based on years of field research from around the world. Called "marvelous, rewarding" by the Wall Street Journal, the book offers a radical rethinking of the economics of poverty and an intimate view of life on 99 cents a day. Poor Economics shows that creating a world without poverty begins with understanding the daily decisions facing the poor.

China: Surpassing the “Middle Income Trap”
China: Surpassing the “Middle Income Trap”

Author: Shaojie Zhou

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9789811565397

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This open access book explores one of the most fiercely debated issues in China: if and how China will surpass the middle income trap that has plagued many developing countries for years. This book gives readers a clear picture of China today and acts as a reference for other developing countries. China is facing many setbacks and experiencing an economic slowdown in recent years due to some serious issues, and income inequality is one such issue deferring China’s development potential by creating a middle income trap. This book thoroughly investigates both the unpromising factors and favorable conditions for China to overcome the trap. It illustrates that traps may be encountered at any stage of development and argues that political stability is the prerequisite to creating a favorable environment for economic development and addressing this “middle income trap”. Written by one of China's central planners, this book offers precious insights into the industrial policies that are transforming China and the world and will be of interest to China scholars, economists and political scientists.

Hypocrisy Trap
Hypocrisy Trap

Author: Catherine Weaver

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2008-11-16

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0691138192

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This text explores how the characteristics of change in a complex organization make hypocrisy difficult to resolve, especially after its exposure becomes a critical threat to the organization's legitimacy and survival.