Poor Economics

What Hacker News says

1. washadjeffmadDec 2024
   Check out "Poor Economics" by Banerjee and Duflo. It's a pretty useful term.

   I'm in the US, which can be pretty sparse even in urban areas if they were designed with particular bulk transit in mind. We have an industrial site that several hundred people need to report to over a 12 hour period, some temporarily, some for the entire duration. There's no parking and it's surrounded by multilane roads, now, so without bussing, no one can enter or leave except on a particular schedule, which hasn't been aligning to their personal schedules, so they can't necessarily get back to their cars to get access to food that may exist half a mile away in an otherwise urban area. There are no food trucks, and there's no food delivery.

   If you're there, there's no convenient way to eat anything you didn't bring. The city took a look and now classifies it as a food desert, so they have to fix it.

   Other types of food deserts are named as an indicator of poverty. In my home town, there was one grocery store and only a few diners. Once the commuter rail ended, about a third of the population (largely plant and mill workers) could only access that that part of town if they had a vehicle that could take the highway. A formerly 10 minute trip by rail and foot suddenly took three or four times as long and required a car! With how many single car households there were, people lost access to convenient food and eventually formed their own town.

   Something similar happened when the bus routes were changed in another city I lived in, intentionally. It was part of a "beautification" scheme to create a false impression of wealth and demographics in a bid to attract investors, and they thought manufacturing a food desert would keep people out. The first year, some elderly people on fixed income died trying to make the trip by foot in the heat or were hit by cars, and the city was sued to reinstate transport.

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2. BrajeshwarDec 2023
   Most of the books I read are influenced by similar threads on HN. This year has not been good overall and it impacted my reading. I need to finish writing the post https://brajeshwar.com/2023/books/

   “How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question” by Michael Schur is a fun book that opens with a good question, “Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?”

   I have been meaning to and this year I finally read The Diary of a Young Girl.

   For 2024, here are some of the ones from my list (sorry for the formatting, copied Markdown from my notes);

   - [Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_War:_The_Fight_for_the_Wo...) by [Chris Miller](https://www.christophermiller.net)

   - [First Principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Principles_(book)) by [Thomas E. Ricks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_E._Ricks_(journalist))

   - [Greenlights](https://greenlights.com) by [Matthew McConaughey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_McConaughey)

   - How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World's Most Dynamic Region by Joe Studwell

   - [Poor Economics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Economics): A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by [Abhijit V. Banerjee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhijit_Banerjee), and [Esther Duflo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Duflo)

   - Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child The Heart of Parenting by [John Gottman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gottman), and Joan DeClaire

   - [The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read](https://www.amazon.com/Book-Wish-Your-Parents-Read/dp/198487...): (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) by [Philippa Perry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippa_Perry)

   - [The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping The Collapse Of Globalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_is_just_t...) by [Peter Zeihan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Zeihan)

   - [The Tatas: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation](https://www.amazon.com/Tatas-Family-Built-Business-Nation/dp...) by [Girish Kuber](https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/गिरीश_कुबेर), and English translation by Vikrant Pande.

   - [Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming](https://www.amazon.com/Windfall-Booming-Business-Global-Warm...) by [McKenzie Funk](https://www.mckenziefunk.com)

   - [Dieter Rams: The Complete Works](https://www.amazon.com/Dieter-Rams-Complete-Klaus-Klemp/dp/1...) by [Klaus Klemp](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Klemp)

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3. PietertjeDec 2022
   This year I've put myself to the challenge to read at least one book per week which I primarily could complete by reading in the middle of the night while holding our sleeping baby in my arms. It has been an interesting challenge which gave me a lot of fulfilment and has certainly changed my mind on how I view the world. This comment became quite a long read, apologies for that.

   Books I highly recommend:

   Churchill by Andrew Roberts (p:1105)

   A biography about one of the most interesting figures in politics and WWII. Roberts gives a very detailed description of the life of Churchill and manages to keep you interested the entire length of the book.

   The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (p:374)

   In The God Delusion Dawkins gives arguments why there is no God, why we do not need a God and why religion is damaging to our society. If you are religious it might not be the book for you unless you are open to hear his arguments and line of reasoning. Dawkins will challenge your worldview.

   The Bomb by Fred Kaplan (p:384)

   Kaplan describes the policy of different US presidents on the atomic bomb and war in general. And primarily on the inability of US presidents and policy-makers to tune down its military. A chilling read which makes you appreciate a nuclear holocaust did not happen (yet)....

   Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo (p:320)

   Banerjee and Duflo give a gripping portrait of how poor people live. They offer an insight in the choices and decisions people make surviving on less than 1 USD a day (corrected for purchasing power). It made me completely rethink my own view on poverty and development aid; stressing even more that in order to help one need to have a complete understanding of the individual's situation and the local boundary conditions.

   Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (p:476)

   This book triggered my science fiction reading. For some reason I never was interested in science fiction. Most likely triggered by reading Foundation by Asimov a few years back which apparently is not a book to my taste. But Andy Weir completely annihilated that wrong perspective on science fiction. Project Hail Mary is interesting, funny and gripping book.

   Kindred by Octavia Butler (p:287)

   This book.... From page one I was hooked and almost read it in one go. Butler is a wonderful author and Kindred is a must-read. The book is about a woman traveling back in time to end up on a slave plantation. It's a chilling account of slavery.

   Other books I read this year, ask me anything about one of these books. I've added a + if I think its worth a recommendation

   Biography:

   Navalny by Dollbaum, Lallouet and Noble (p:280); The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya (p:354) +

   Sociology; Politics; Economics; Business:

   Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew S. Grove (p:224); The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (p:140); Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov (p:290); Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum (p:224) +; Man's Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl (p:164) +; We Are Bellingcat by Eliot Higgins (p:272); De Zeven Vinkjes by Joris Luyendijk (p:200); Waarom vuilnismannen meer verdienen dan bankiers by Rutger Bregman (p:104)

   Comedy: The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams (p:336)

   History:

   Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose (p:432); The Nuclear Jihadist by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins (p:413) +; The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre (p:384) +; De Heineken Ontvoering by Peter R. de Vries (p:347); Red Famine by Anne Apllebaum (p:384); Night by Elie Wiesel (p:115) +

   Science, Technology, Mathematics:

   Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh (p:315) +; A Mathematician's Apology by G.H. Hardy (p:153); The Great Influenza by John M. Barry (p:546); The Rise and Fall of the Dinousaurs by Stephen Brusatte (p:404) ++; The Double Helix by James Watson (p:144)

   Sport:

   Run or Die by Killian Jornet (p:208); The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton (p:290) +; The Rise of the Ultra Runners by (p:304); Tom Dumoulin by Patrick Bernhart (p:203)

   Fiction:

   Anthem by Ayn Rand (p:105); Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (p:704); The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (p:566); Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (p:466); Live and Let die by Ian Fleming (p:229)

   Classics:

   A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (p:104); The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (p:201); The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzergerald (p:180); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (p:139); Animal Farm by George Orwell (p:122) +; Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (p:227) +; The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (p:118)

   Science Fiction:

   The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (p:399); All Systems Red by Martha Wells (p:144) +; A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (p:462) +; A Psalm built for the Wild by Becky Chambers (p:160); Dune by Frank Herbert (p:658); Foundation by Isaac Asimov (p:244); The Martian by Andy Weir (p:384) +; The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (p:278)

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4. dash2May 2022
   >Economics as a discipline describes an idealized fictional human-like colony on Mars, locked in a greenhouse. It doesn't even attempt to describe humans living on Earth, so be careful how you interpret it.

   I'm an economist, and this is not remotely true. It's not even true for economic theory (international trade, environmental economics).

   Here are some economic articles about humans on earth:

   Case and Deaton's Deaths of Despair paper: https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/15078.full_....

   Duflo and Banerjee, Poor Economics

   Easterly, The White Man's Burden

   Autor et al's China Syndrome on the effect of trade with China: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18054/w180... and their subsequent papers on its effect on social outcomes (marriage, divorce, drug overdoses) and political extremism.

   The idea that economists don't study real estate markets is also absolutely false. Google scholar "real estate economics" gives about 2.5 million results. There's the Journal of Urban Economics. There's Glaeser's book Triumph of the City. Et cetera.

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5. cloudierMar 2022
   “Seeing like a state” taught me what high modernism is and it’s pitfalls (since I - and I imagine many readers of HN - are already familiar with its strengths and achievements e.g. modern medicine).

   Poor Economics is a book in a similar vein that talks about how policies that sound like they would be effective can backfire.

   (I am a software engineer and found both of these books approachable and interesting.)

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6. StClaireJul 2020
   Two books about economic development that I love:

   Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson

   Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo

   The first deals with why nations stay poor, the second covers how the poor in the third world live and how to actually help them

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