Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty & the Ways to End it

by Abhijit V. Banerjee

We think that both of these views are somewhat wrongheaded ways to think about this and other similar problems, for two reasons. First, what the 2-pounds-of-dal experiments demonstrate is that in Udaipur at least, the poor might appear to believe in all kinds of things, but there is not much conviction behind many of those beliefs. They do not fear the evil eye so much that they would pass up the dal. This must mean that they actually know they are in no position to have a strong basis to evaluate the costs and benefits of vaccines. When they actually know what they want—marrying their daughter to someone from the right caste or religion, to take an unfortunate but important example—they are not at all easy to bribe. So, although some beliefs the poor have are undoubtedly strongly held, it is a mistake to consider that it is always the case. There is a second reason this is wrong. Both the right wing and the left wing seem to assume that action follows intention: that if people were convinced of the value of immunization, children would be immunized. This is not always true, and the implications are far-reaching.