Drawing on 15 years of research from Chile to India, Kenya to Indonesia, authors Banerjee and Duflo have identified new aspects of the behavior of poor people, their needs, and the way that aid or financial investment can affect their lives. Their work

challenges certain presumptions: that microfinance is a cure-all, that schooling equals learning, that poverty at the level of 99 cents a day is just a more extreme version of the experience any of us have

when our income falls uncomfortably low.