Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
1–10 of 225 posts
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#2These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument:
> The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abolition of materialist-elitist values is a prerequisite for the abolition of inequality and privilege; (b) the persistence of materialist-elitist values is a prerequisite for class stratification based on wealth and status; (c) therefore, a class-stratified meritocracy is impossible.
> The case against meritocracy can also be put sociologically: (a) Allocating rewards irrespective of merit is a prerequisite for meritocracy, otherwise environments cannot be equalized; (b) allocating rewards according to merit is a prerequisite for meritocracy, otherwise people cannot be stratified by wealth and status; (c) therefore, a class-stratified meritocracy is impossible.
Source: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2007/12/04/meritocrac...
The idea that "innate" merit should be rewarded (this underlies what we consider meritocracy) is fundamentally a noncontinuable state. Above all we need to focus on delivering opportunity via improved circumstances and empowerment, irrespective of merit or success: that is the only path to actual equality.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#3For those who want a TL;DR, below is an extract of the summary. I think they did a good job, the article was well written.
Poverty traps are one of the most fundamental concepts in development economics. The contri- bution of this paper has been to provide evidence for their existence using the combination of a randomized asset transfer and an 11 year follow up in rural Bangladesh. Our key finding is that people stay poor because they lack opportunity. It is not their intrinsic characteristics that trap people in poverty but rather their circumstances. This has three implications for how we think about development policy.
The first is that big pushes that enable occupational change will be needed to address the global mass poverty problem. Small pushes will work to elevate consumption but will not get people out of the poverty trap. The magnitude of the transfer needed to achieve occupational change may be much larger than is typical with current interventions though importantly it can be time limited. Therefore the fiscal cost of permanently getting people out of poverty through a large, time limited transfer might actually be lower than relying on continual transfers that raise consumption but have no effect on the occupations of the poor.
The second is that big push policies can have long-lasting effects. Our analysis of long-run dynamics indicates that the asset, occupation and consumption trajectories of above threshold beneficiaries diverge from those of below threshold beneficiaries over time. This finding is impor- tant as it indicates that, by engendering occupational change, one time pushes can have permanent effects.
The third is that poverty traps create mismatches between talent and jobs. We have shown that misallocation of labor is rife amongst the poor in rural Bangladesh. Indeed, we show that the vast majority of the poor in rural Bangladesh are not engaged in the occupations where they would be most productive. They are perfectly capable of taking on the occupations of the richer women but are constrained from doing so by a lack of resources. The value of eliminating misallocation is an order of magnitude larger than the cost of moving all the beneficiaries past the threshold. This is important as it implies that poverty traps are preventing people from making full use of their abilities and indeed it is the mass squandering of people’s abilities that is the key tragedy of mass poverty.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#4It's worth mentioning that poverty is highly inheritable. You could eliminate world poverty by being more selective with reproduction choices.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#5For those who want a TL;DR, below is an extract of the summary. I think they did a good job, the article was well written. Poverty traps are one of the most fundamental concepts in development economics. The contri- bution of this paper has been to provide evidence for their existence using the combination of a randomized asset transfer and an 11 year follow up in rural Bangladesh. Our key finding is that people stay…
If only there was some person or some group to realign society and correctly place everyone according to ability.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#6These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
When "meritocracy" was defined it was not used as an example of a good thing :-)
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#7These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
I don't see why you need a) and b) here. A class-stratified meritocracy being impossible is pretty much a tautology in itself.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#8These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
"These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA)"
"Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh" - are you suggesting the situation in rural Bangladesh is applicable to Silicon Valley?
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#9These conclusions seem to spit in the face of "meritocracy". It's always puzzled me that this idea of meritocracy, especially in tech (notably USA), is so pervasive, bleeding into our corporate performance reviews and our pro-diversity efforts ("we hire only according to merit" ). But it is so internally irrational. I'm reminded of this argument: > The case against meritocracy can be put psychologically: (a) The abol…
Unequal distribution of rewards (i.e. according to merit) is fine and desirable (as a motivating force). The problem's roots are when the distribution of rewards becomes hereditary, that the children of the wealthy have near-guaranteed access to the best educational and social institutions, have near-guaranteed access to startup capital (i.e. from their parents), are usually provided with necessities (food, housing, clothing, incidentals) at no out-of-pocket cost by their parents for a considerable portion of their early adult lives, etc. It is the hereditary nature of wealth which is the largest contributor to long-term inequality.
Re: Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh [pdf]
#10Poor people should just sell some of their stock options or properties.