Good Economics for Hard Times

Quotes

"Excellent...Few have grappled as energetically with the complexity of real life as Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, or got their boots as dirty in the process...A treasure trove of insight...[Readers] will be captivated by the authors' curiosity, ferocious intellects and attractive modesty."—The Economist

A Wall Street Journal BestsellerA USA Today Bestseller

"Carefully argued and backed with research...Good Economics is an effective response to Banerjee and Duflo's more thoughtful critics, some of whom argued that devotion to randomised trials had led to a narrowing of economics, in which complex questions that could not be scientifically tested should simply be set aside. The authors make a convincing case that empirical economics contains answers to many vexing problems, from populism to identity politics, especially when economists are willing to range outside their discipline's confines."—Financial Times

"'Good Economics for Hard Times' lives up to its authors' reputations, giving a masterly tour of the current evidence on critical policy questions facing less-than-perfect markets in both developed and developing countries, from migration to trade to postindustrial blight."—Wall Street Journal

"Their goal is to ground both sides of our national debate in hard evidence, and the process of coming up with ways to do that is pretty interesting in itself... Eager to distance themselves from the previous generation of economists who argued from first principles, Banerjee and Duflo say nothing that smells like special pleading. It would be hard to take umbrage with such studied humility. The authors admit, 'We clearly don't have all the solutions, and suspect no one else does either.' Even so, the prospect of a path towards consensus solutions through iterated experiments is enough to make for a compelling read."—National Review

"The studies they cite probe hot topics such as climate change, immigration and the viability of continued economic growth. Banerjee and Duflo synthesize the literature on what is agreed and what is controversial in an accessible, often entertaining way."—Nature

"Good Economics for Hard Times makes important policy connections and suggestions... Banerjee and Duflo explore traditional remedies (tariffs sure aren't the answer, they find, and job retraining and other trade adjustment tools are too narrow and take too long) and suggest some novel ideas... In crafting their carefully reasoned arguments, they marshal evidence assembled over decades from all sorts of areas-the fight against malaria, past efforts at tax reform, previous waves of migration-and propose commonsense solutions."—Foreign Policy

"Lucid and frequently surprising... Banerjee and Duflo's arguments are original and open-minded and their evidence is clearly presented. Policy makers and lay readers looking for fresh insights into contemporary economic matters will savor this illuminating book."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A canard-slaying, unconventional take on economics...This might look like yet another conventional state-of-the-world economics book, but it is anything but. It is an invigorating ride through 21st-century economics and a treasure trove of facts and findings."—The Times (UK)

"Good Economics for Hard Times lives up to its authors' reputations, giving a masterly tour of the current evidence on critical policy questions facing less-than-perfect markets in both developed and developing countries, from migration to trade to postindustrial blight."—William Easterly, The Wall Street Journal