This collection of essays exemplifies the recent trend in micro-development economics, where the source of underdevelopment problems is related to deficiencies in underlying institutions and distribution of assets: contract enforcement mechanisms, information systems, inequality of land and...

Understanding poverty and what to do about it, is perhaps the central concern of all of economics. Yet the lay public almost never gets to hear what leading professional economists have to say about it. This volume brings together twenty-eight essays by some of the world leaders in the field,...