Here are the articles and blogs we've been perusing over the past few weeks. Let us know if we have missed any essential must-reads in that time via comments.
- Cash transfers vs. microloans on the GiveWell blog
- Mexico's Housing Development --where poor people won't live (video)
- IFC reports huge unmet demand for microfinance
- The state of microcredit by David Roodman
- The end of absolute poverty is closer than you think by Charles Kenny (in the Globe and Mail)
- How the internet reinforces inequality
- Inequality, not poor schools, explains low U.S. test scores
- Income inequality in the US-- check your block with this interactive map
- Life at the margins of America's financial mainstream
- Can the Payday Loan be Reinvented?
Editors’ Note: Hi, Laura and Jonathan here. A few of the pieces this week come from people who spent years up close with how poor households actually handle money, and keep coming back with something more tangled than the story usually told, and more persistent. Tim will be back for the next edition. - Laura Freschi and Jonathan Morduch