Here is our short list of must reads for the week.
- FAI’s Jonathan Morduch and Barbara Kiviat preview the launch of a new research project on the financial lives of low-income Americans
- Two trends in global poverty --New report from Brookings
- A new report from the World Economic Forum on mobile finance
- The NYT and "India’s Anti-Poverty Programs Are Big but Troubled"
- Tina Rosenberg on Microinsurance for the NYT Fixes blog
- The Wall Street Journal on Financial Inclusion 2.0 & the need to focus microsavings
- Stuart Rutherford on "Saving Up is Hard to Do"
- David Bornstein on "A Book In Every Home, and Then Some" for the NYT Fixesblog.
- Gift Cards as Tools of Financial Inclusion
- Karlan and Appel on "Microfinance works, even without a Hollywood ending"
- Nick Kristof on smarter aid, economists, and Michael Kremer's work on deworming
- Is credit a human right? Yunus says yes. NYU's Gershman and Morduchdisagree in a new paper
- In letter to 8 million Grameen members, Yunus warns of gov attempt to take over
- Regulatory Architecture of India’s Financial System
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