The National Bureau of Economic Research and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Assets and Market Access held an intensive two-day workshop on The Economics of Asset Dynamics and Poverty Traps June 28-29, 2016 in Washington, DC. The workshop featured a number of leading experts in the economics of asset dynamics and was organized by Christopher B. Barrett of Cornell University, Michael Carter of the University of California-Davis, and Jean-Paul Chavas of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
We at Economics that Really Matters had the opportunity to attend this workshop and, with the assistance of several guest bloggers, will be offering summaries of and reflections on the workshop papers, discussions, and findings, with an emphasis on avenues for further research.
The workshop focused on four poverty trap mechanisms, itemized below, and closed with a discussion of policy implications and responses to these mechanisms. As they become available, workshop presentations and discussant comments are being posted on the Innovation Lab website. As we post summaries of each of the workshop topics, links to the posts will be added here:
Mechanism 1: Nutrition, Health, and Human Capital Formation
Mechanism 2: Psychology of Poverty, Hope, and Aspirations
Mechanism 3: Imperfect and Incomplete Financial Markets
Mechanism 4: Dynamics and Resilience in Natural Resources and Agriculture
Policy in the Presence of Poverty Trap Mechanisms & Follow-up Interviews
