Economic Gangsters – Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations - Softcover

Fisman, Ray; Miguel, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691144699 ISBN 13: 9780691144696

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2010

Synopsis

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Review

"I already knew Fisman and Miguel were the best and the brightest in the new generation of development economists. Now I know they are great writers--and great detectives. They find ingenious ways to get inside the issues of corruption and violence that leave behind the tired analyses of the past. It's a lively tale that nobody concerned about world poverty or violence can afford to miss."--William Easterly, author of The White Man's Burden

"Economic Gangsters reveals the important connections between poverty, crime, and corruption, helping us to see what a small and intertwined world we live in."--Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational

"Economic Gangsters is a fascinating exploration of the dark side of economic development. Two of the world's most creative young economists use their remarkable talents for economic sleuthing to study violence, corruption, and poverty in the most unexpected ways. Subjected to their genius, seemingly inconsequential events (like New York City parking tickets and Suharto's catching a cold) become potent tools in understanding how the world really works. Rarely has a book on economics been this fun and this important."--Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics

"Those who love to pontificate, unconstrained by data, about the nature of human evil, will hate this book. It takes on corruption, murder, and civil wars, and shows us, step by step, how economic methods, creatively used, can help us find relevant data in unexpected places, data that makes it possible to offer rigorous (and sometimes surprising) answers to questions that, hitherto, had been consigned to the realm of pure speculation."--Abhijit Banerjee, director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009"

"[S]mart and eminently readable . . . [F]isman and Miguel try to do for global poverty what [Steven] Levitt did for domestic economic issues. For example, they look at the way 'witches' are killed in Tanzania whenever rainfalls fail and food is scarce; it turns out that families try to save food by executing less-productive elderly women as witches."---Nicholas Kristof, NYTimes.com's On the Ground blog

"Columbia's Ray Fisman and Berkeley's Ted Miguel are two of the most creative and interesting economists I know. Each is driven to better understand just what keeps poor countries in poverty, and they are willing to try some pretty amazing research strategies to figure it out. They have traveled far and wide--both geographically and intellectually--and in their beautifully written book Economic Gangsters, they shine a well-honed statistical spotlight on the twin evils of corruption and violence. The book is a dead-set page turner, and there's nothing more fun than feeling like you are next to them as they travel the world in search of the scoundrels responsible for so much suffering."---Justin Wolfers, Freakonomics blog

"Smart and eminently readable."---Nicholas Kristof, NYTimes.com,

"[Fisman and Miguel] avoid academic jargon and write for a general audience in explaining how economists study the problem of pervasive endemic poverty. . . . Reminiscent of other lighter looks at economics, e.g., Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics and Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist, this book makes developmental economics both entertaining and accessible to a broad audience."--Library Journal

"In this surprisingly spry read, authors and economics professors Fisman and Miguel tackle economic development issues in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, beginning with the question: after decades of independence and billions in foreign aid, why are so many developing countries still mired in poverty? . . . This thorough, thoughtful guide to global corruption is an engaging, disarmingly upbeat read for fans of Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell."--PublishersWeekly.com

About the Author

Raymond Fisman is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and director of the Social Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School. He is a columnist for Slate. Edward Miguel is professor of economics and director of the Center of Evaluations for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0691144699
• ISBN 13: 9780691144696
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256