ABSTRACT:
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo have discussed how a rigorous scientific approach can be used to eradicate poverty by collecting qualitative and quantitative information about poverty and focusing on specific questions related to the life of poor people, in their book ‘Poor Economics’. According to Abhijit Banerjee poor people are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and do not easily escape from it. He refuted the traditional view of the vicious circle of poverty. One of the underlying assumptions in the vicious circle of poverty is that poor people eat as much food as they can afford, meaning that poor people spend all their income on food. But according to Abhijit Banerjee, poor people do not spend all their income on food. Moreover, what is spent is not on nutritious food. They do not know about nutritional value. Poor people are not trapped in the vicious circle of poverty because of hunger. The real issue is not the quantity of food but the quality and nutritional value of the food. Poor people are seen as trapped in vicious circle of health. The vicious circle of health can be at the root of many other vicious circle. At the same time, the quality of education available to the poor is very poor. According to Abhijit Banerjee, to improve the education system, schools should have a focus on educating children. It is also necessary to change the attitude of parents towards education. Huge amount is being spent on poverty alleviation programme in developing countries through government and NGO. In India, huge amount has been spent on poverty alleviation programme since planning era started. But Abhijit Banerjee has expressed a slightly different views in this regard. Breaking the vicious circle of poverty and health does not necessarily require huge expenditure. Clean and pure chlorinated water, nutritious food for children, pensions, social security payments, use of iron and iodized salt, vaccination, use of mosquito nets, use of chlorine powder to make water drinkable, use of ORS to prevent dehydration, these measures can be magical. Abhijit Banerjee says that we do not have any magic wand to eradicate poverty but many small measures can definitely be effective in making the better life of poor. Abhijit Banerjee has presented very insightful ideas on poverty alleviation in his book 'Poor Economics. That is why Amartya Sen has called this book ‘A marvelously insightful book by two outstanding researchers on the real nature of poverty’.
Cite this article:
Yadav Madhukar Kashide. Abhijit Banerjee on Poverty Alleviation. International Journal of Reviews and Research in Social Sciences. 2026; 14(3):133-7. doi: 10.52711/2454-2687.2026.00023
Cite(Electronic):
Yadav Madhukar Kashide. Abhijit Banerjee on Poverty Alleviation. International Journal of Reviews and Research in Social Sciences. 2026; 14(3):133-7. doi: 10.52711/2454-2687.2026.00023 Available on: https://www.ijrrssonline.in/AbstractView.aspx?PID=2026-14-3-2
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