*What Works in Development?*

The subtitle is Thinking Big and Thinking Small and the editors are Jessica Cohen and William Easterly.  Usually essay collections are of low value but this is the single best introduction (I know of) to where development economics is at today.  Contributors include Dani Rodrik, Simon Johnson, Michael Kremer, Lant Pritchett, Ricardo Haussmann, and Abhijit Banerjee, among others.  Even better, there are two published (short) comments on each essay, a practice which should be universal in every collection, if only to establish context.  My favorite piece was Banerjee's on why development economics should "think small" rather than just doing macro issues.  Recommended.