The poverty trap – The daily blog of behavioral and cognitive economics

The Myth of the Poverty Trap

We used to be trapped. And by “we,” I really do mean all of us. A few hundred years ago, the majority of the world lived in extreme poverty, and even in recent decades, people lucky enough to clear the $2.15-per-day threshold were living lives that others in the developed world would find unrecognizable. Death is inevitable. Living in poverty is not. From 1981 to 2019, the share of the global population living in extreme poverty fell from 44 percent to just 9 percent—an astronomical achievement. On this episode of Good on Paper, we’re going to talk about how this all happened. Today’s guest is Paul Niehaus, an economist and co-founder of the NGO GiveDirectly. ….[READ]