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Showing posts from November, 2019

Poor people know how to spend money: a novel way to provide aid to developing communities

I just read an article  that documents the far reaching positive economic impact of giving people money. It's well written and looks at context and details so perhaps you should just read it instead of taking my opinion. OK. You did? Great. Now here's my take: A nonprofit, GiveDirectly , has been experimenting with simply transferring a single sum of money to families in extreme poverty in certain villages in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The amounts of money are very large compared to the families' usual income, in the recent study around $1000 USD. The recent study looked at a village on the banks of Lake Victoria in Kenya and the recipients were everyone in the village whose house had a thatched roof (an indication of poverty since richer families have metal roofs). The results were less hunger, more investment in farming and small business, more ownership of livestock and increase in overall happiness. The effects also extended to people in the village who did no...