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Poverty and discrimination
Kevin Lang's Poverty and Discrimination is marketed as a text but it is far more. Imagine a first-rate labor economist sitting down to tell us what he knows about the topics at hand. This includes who is poor, does economic growth still eliminate poverty, how much does family structure matter, does changing neighborhoods help a family, what have been the effects of welfare reform, how strong is labor market race discrimination, and many others. Lang's discussions are consistently smart and insightful. While Lang does not offer much of his own ideas and research, only an original researcher such as Lang could produce a survey of this quality and depth.
Why isn't there a book like this on every topic?
I do have a few quibbles. For my tastes there is too much talk about identification problems and not enough about data quality. Some topics are undercovered, such as the link between mental illness and poverty. I would have added much more on poverty as a behavioral phenomenon of dysfunctional psychology and high time preferences. The old scolding conservative account of poverty has much truth to it, but you wouldn't know that from reading this book.
This book is academic substance, beginning to end, and for that reason it won't be a fun read to everybody. But with that caveat, and noting the $60.00 purchase price, it joins my list (Sacred Games, The Savage Detectives, Prophet of Innovation) of must-reads for the year.
Here is the book's home page. Here is Arnold Kling on the book.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 7, 2007 at 05:45 AM in Books, Economics | Permalink
Comments
Tyler, see if you can get your university library to order it.
Then, when they tell you that they've got it on order (i.e., the
title exists in their library computer system), use the library system
to request it. If it works, you'll get it first, and be able to read it.
If you still feel that you want to own it, you can buy it then.
Also, your library should have access to interlibrary loan systems.
If you lean on your library, you could probably cut your book purchases
in half, with the half that's avoided being the ones that you don't
really need or want to own.
Posted by: Barry at May 8, 2007 11:20:18 AM
I would have added much more on poverty as a behavioral phenomenon of dysfunctional psychology and high time preferences. The old scolding conservative account of poverty has much truth to it, but you wouldn't know that from reading this book.
I agree that poverty is often a result of "dysfunctional psychology" but I do not buy the "high time preferences" explanation. People who plan ahead end up better off in both the short-run and the long-run. People who don't plan ahead are not typically making a rational choice between present consumption and future consumption that reflects their preferences, instead, they really are not making a choice at all but instead are instead exhibiting "dysfunctional psychology."
The old scolding conservative account of poverty has much truth to it...
So, there is a lot of truth to the idea that the poor should be blamed (you don't scold someone unless they are to blame) for their "dysfunctional psychology??" I don't think that makes much sense. In an ideal world, people with "dysfunctional psychology" would respond by correcting their dysfunctions in response to scolding from strangers who are not really invested in them (i.e. conservatives who are pointing their fingers while sitting around), but in the real world, such scolding does not work in the vast majority of cases (except for maybe for some people who are very sensitive to such things). Indeed, in many cases, the "dysfunctional psychology" that people exhibit is certainly related to the blame (and scolding) that has been directed at them throughout their lives.
I think Tyler is flat out wrong here. There is not a lot of basis for the conservative tendency to think that the poor should be "blamed" to the extent that they exhibit "dysfunctional psychology" or that the solution to such psychology is scolding. More likely, what is needed in most instances is a more compassionate (but not naive) approach.
I wish it were that simple!
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