Development Economics Reading List

An introduction to poverty, economics, and what we can do (plus what we've done wrong).

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, 2006
Understanding Poverty
28 essays by leading development economists dealing with poverty issues of measurement, causes, policies, microcredit, vaccines, child labor, welfare, and puzzles.*

Paul Collier, 2008
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It
"50 failing states ... whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty."

William Easterly, 2002
The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
An explanation of economic growth failures since WWII, including "providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms." It's all about incentives.

Jeffrey Sachs, 2006
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time
"A strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the same commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war."

Amartya Sen, 2000
Development as Freedom
1998 Nobel Prize for Economics recipient argues that "open dialogue, civil freedoms, and political liberties are prerequisites for sustainable development."

Philip Smith and Eric Thurman, 2007
A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty
"A bold manifesto by two business leaders [who show] why microcredit is the world's most powerful poverty-fighting movement and an unbeatable investment for your charitable donations."

Hernando de Soto, 2003
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
"A fascinating and solidly supported look at the one component that's holding much of the world back from developing healthy free markets."

Muhammad Yunus, 2008
(1) Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
(2) Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism
2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1) "[gives] an inspiring memoir of the birth of microcredit ... which has helped 100 million of the poorest people in the world escape poverty" and (2) "argues ... that social business is an achievable way of exploiting capitalism to help the poor."

* All book descriptions are from Amazon.com.