Economics is changing: A Nobel for 3 pragmatic poverty-fighters shows that

International News
This year’s economics Nobel prize went to three worthy economists — Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University. The prize, which was awarded “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” shows several important ways that the economics discipline is changing.
A popular conception of economists is that they’re the high priests of the free market, downplaying the role of government and giving short shrift to the needs of society’s poorest. A great many economists defy this stereotype, spending their careers studying how to uplift the poorest citizens of the developing world through government action. Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer fall into this category.
For example, all three have studied the benefits of education. Citizens of developed countries generally take universal public education for granted, along with the economic wealth that an educated populace creates. Developing countries, such as Kenya and India, don’t have this luxury. In 2003, Kremer reviewed a series of randomized controlled trials in Kenya that found that spending more on education was effective, but that health treatments like deworming were also useful for keeping kids in school. Banerjee and Duflo, along with co-authors Shawn Cole and Leigh Linden, studied a program that hired tutors for underperforming students in India, as well as a computer-assisted learning program, and concluded that both were effective. Duflo has also found big wage gains from public education spending in India, confirming the central role of schools for economic growth.

 Over the years, Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer looked at programs that nudge developing-world farmers to use more fertilizer, provide microcredit to slum residents, create quotas for women in local government, provide deworming treatments for the poor, eradicate malaria, and many other targeted ...READ MORE

Why many children in Afghanistan can no longer afford to attend school

International News

Every day before dawn, 10-year-old Kamran goes to work with his father and other relatives at a brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul.
Like many children in Afghanistan, school is a luxury his family can no longer afford.His father, Atiqullah, supports his family of eight as well as several siblings, nieces and nephews. One of Kamran's uncles is ill and another has passed away, leaving their families in his father's care.
"My children wake up early in the morning and right after prayers they come here for work, so they don't have time for school," said Atiqullah, who like many Afghans has only one name. "These days if you don't work, you cannot survive."The U.S. and its allies have sunk billions of dollars of aid into Afghanistan since the invasion to oust the Taliban 18 years ago, but the country remains mired in poverty.
Signs of hardship are everywhere, from children begging in the streets to entire families including children as young as five or six working at brick kilns in the sweltering heat.
Atiqullah's family comes from the eastern Nangarhar province, a stronghold for both the Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate that has seen heavy fighting in recent years.
Brick factory owners travel to the villages and offer loans to cover basic necessities, forcing families to work them off during the summer months in a form of indentured servitude.

Workers say a family of 10 can bring in an average of $12-18 a day, depending on their productivity.Shubham Chaudhuri, who recently completed a three-year stint as the World Bank country director for Afghanistan, said more than half of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day, the amount considered necessary to meet basic needs...Read More