The evidence that the same income can lead to different household decisions, depending on who the earner is, has led to an effort to replace the standard household model with the 'collective model', which recognises that a household's decisions depend on the power balance between the husband and...

This article addresses the interconnections between two seemingly disparate worlds—the world of abstract economic analysis and the world of policy and politics, drawing on the author’s personal experience in the two worlds. A fundamental premise underlying the analysis is that it...

If child labor as a mass phenomenon occurs not because of parental selfishness but because of the parents' concern for the household's survival, the popular argument for banning child labor loses much of its force. However, this assumption about parental decision making, coupled with the...

One of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out...

This volume brings together some of the most influential scholars in development economics to explore how to improve the well-being of the poor, how to design effective structures and institutions for poverty reduction and what the role of economic, political and social dimensions are (and...