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49th out of 59 books
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Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day
Nearly forty percent of humanity lives on an average of two dollars a day or less. If you've never had to survive on an income so small, it is hard to imagine. How would you put food on the table, afford a home, and educate your children? How would you handle emergencies and old age? Every day, more than a billion people around the world must answer these questions. Portfo...more
Hardcover, 296 pages
Published
May 5th 2009
by Princeton University Press
(first published March 1st 2009)
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2009#66
Patokan kemiskinan ala Bank Dunia yang memakai besaran pendapatan $2 sehari kerap dipermasalahkan. Katakanlah dalam kasus Indonesia, sebagian peneliti memakai patokan $1 sehari (lihat misalnya Yong Ho Bang, One Dollar a Day Poverty in Indonesia, 1999). Tapi bukan perdebatan angka itu yang hendak diulas oleh buku maupun resensi ini. Baik $1 maupun $2, yang jelas kita tahu bahwa standar hidup orang miskin jauh berada di bawah orang kebanyakan. Namun para ahli umumnya berhenti s...more
Patokan kemiskinan ala Bank Dunia yang memakai besaran pendapatan $2 sehari kerap dipermasalahkan. Katakanlah dalam kasus Indonesia, sebagian peneliti memakai patokan $1 sehari (lihat misalnya Yong Ho Bang, One Dollar a Day Poverty in Indonesia, 1999). Tapi bukan perdebatan angka itu yang hendak diulas oleh buku maupun resensi ini. Baik $1 maupun $2, yang jelas kita tahu bahwa standar hidup orang miskin jauh berada di bawah orang kebanyakan. Namun para ahli umumnya berhenti s...more
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I had the wrong idea in my head about what this book was about. I thought it would be individual stories about people who struggled to get by; the choices they had, the trials they faced, the final outcomes they arrived at.
It is no discredit to the book that it was not. Instead, it was an account of data collected and conclusions drawn from a large number of 'financial diaries' that poor families in Bangladesh, India and South Africa kept over a long period of time. The focus was ...more
It is no discredit to the book that it was not. Instead, it was an account of data collected and conclusions drawn from a large number of 'financial diaries' that poor families in Bangladesh, India and South Africa kept over a long period of time. The focus was ...more
Some very good ideas, but fairly dry presentation. Portfolios of the Poor describes the findings of four researchers who studied how extremely poor households in India, Bangladesh, and South Africa manage their household finances. Their approach was to select 20-30 case study households per region and study their finances from a longitudinal perspective by tracking their cash flows and household balance sheets over a long period of time. If I were to reduce their findings to a single bullet poin...more
A usefully different perspective on the global economy. Morduch (a professor at NYU Wagner) and his co-authors structured the book around a series of financial journals kept by poor households in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa. The main takeaway is that the world's poor also tend to be heavy users of (mostly informal) financial instruments by necessity because their incomes are also unpredictable. It was interesting to read the authors' description of how it took their survey team several v...more
I started with this book with a much different picture of its subject matter than the reality. Looking at its title, I focused on the subtitle more than the the real title, unconsciously discarding the word portfolios. Because really, how much of a portfolio does someone who makes $2 a day have? Quite a complex one it turns out, even more complicated than my own.
This superb book discusses why the poor need complex financial mechanisms to survive, the problems with the tools that they...more
This superb book discusses why the poor need complex financial mechanisms to survive, the problems with the tools that they...more
This book answers the question "how do people live on two dollars (or less) per day?", and it answers it well. This is an excellent companion to the various international political economy books out there which deal with a lot of very large numbers and statistics, because while those are quantitative studies of problems that a generalized "Third World" faces, this is a qualitative study of how people and families in that World survive (and sometimes thrive) on what would seem...more
I found this a fantastic and thought-provoking book. THe authors follow the detailed financial transactions of a group of the world's poor (those who live on less than $2/day) from S.Africa, india and Bangladesh. What they find is that despite the size of their income, their need for money management tools is greater than the average. in fact, the amount of total 'turnover' that flows through the households is far greater than a snapshot of their asset value would suggest. It suggests improv...more
I happened upon this on the library's new books rack. Most financial studies of the poor in developing countries focus on income or one-time assets, but the authors had many families keep financial diaries to track cash flow. The results were fascinating. They explained the popularity and effectiveness of microfinancing, as well as pointing out where improvement was still needed. My favorite chapter, of course, was the one on the Grameen Bank, but each chapter had interesting little stories abou...more
This is an incredibly important book for dispelling certain assumptions that we rich folk have in regards to the poor and how they spend their money. The writers did their homework, and provide the global community with concrete ideas for ways to help the world´s poorest climb out of poverty.
With that said, it´s a pretty boring book. Microfinance is a hot ticket right now, and it really has revolutionized the way global economies view the poor, but I really don´t see it as the silv...more
With that said, it´s a pretty boring book. Microfinance is a hot ticket right now, and it really has revolutionized the way global economies view the poor, but I really don´t see it as the silv...more
Anna Silalahi-Sjoehoed
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A lil bit shocked by the title, as I used to managed myself not to spent more than IDR 25K (which is about $3) a day, makes me ideal objected as guinea pigs in this book? oh noo haha.
What I already learn before I read this, is the preface telling that they studied how the poor make their way to adjust their living level.Maybe its applicable to me? hehe
What I already learn before I read this, is the preface telling that they studied how the poor make their way to adjust their living level.Maybe its applicable to me? hehe
This is the only practical study of microfinance I've ever seen, and I have to admit I was totally cluseless about a lot of finance mechanisms until they were mentioned in this book.
It's nice to see some of the harsh reality about dollars and cents.
It's nice to see some of the harsh reality about dollars and cents.
As seen in The New Yorker.
As an academic book I think this book was quite good, I just think I was the wrong audience for it. It would have been an extremely valuable book to read if I were to say work in microfinance or if I were a student of it, but this was far too detailed and repetitive for someone like me who just picked it up because I am interested in the topic. Like so many nonfiction books I have been reading lately, I think this would make a great essay or a feature NY Times Magazine article or something lik...more
Academic & dry at parts, but actually very enlightening about the financial lives of the poor. If you're interested, I'd suggest reading what's interesting to you in the main book, and then going to the appendix and reading all the profiles of individual people there.
They had a few very good points and repeated them many times so that even if you are stupid you get it. The points were good though - poor people need various types of financial services to help with cashflow, not just loans. I liked the approach.
The thesis is interesting, but this book couldn't hold my interest all the way through. I'm glad people are out there doing this research, but I don't really need to read the raw data.
Recommended.
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