Center for Global Development presents
More Than Good Intentions
How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty
Featuring
Dean Karlan
Professor of Economics
Yale University
and
Non-Resident Fellow
Center for Global Development
Jacob Appel
Researcher
Innovations for Poverty Action
With Discussants
Carola Alvarez
Chief, Office of Strategic Planning and Development Effectiveness
Inter-American Development Bank
Ruth Levine
Incoming Director, Global Development and Population Program
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Franck Wiebe
Chief Economist
Millennium Challenge Corporation
Chaired by
David Roodman
Senior Fellow
Center for Global Development
Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel present an new approach to global poverty reduction that combines behavioral economics with worldwide field research. Their book takes readers into villages across Africa, India, South America, and the Philippines, where economic theory collides with real life. They show how small changes in banking, insurance, health care, and other development initiatives that take into account human irrationality can drastically improve the well-being of poor people. More Than Good Intentions provides a new way to understand what really works to reduce poverty; in so doing, it reveals how to better invest charitable gifts and official assistance to make a difference in the lives of poor people.
Dean Karlan is Professor of Economics at Yale University and the President and Founder of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). Recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, he is also a research fellow at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development.
*The Massachusetts Ave. Development Seminar (MADS) is a ten year-old research seminar series that brings some of the world’s leading development scholars to discuss their new research and ideas. The presentations meet an academic standard of quality and are at times technical, but retain a focus on a mixed audience of researchers and policymakers.