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Accounting for the Poor
Author(s) -
Townsend Robert M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1093/ajae/aat022
Subject(s) - allocative efficiency , nobel laureate , poverty , economics , agriculture , positive economics , neoclassical economics , economic growth , geography , art , poetry , literature , archaeology
Economists and other social scientists have long tried to understand the nature of poverty and how poor people make decisions. For example, T.W. Schultz, a Nobel Laureate, former professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and former president of the American Economic Association, spent his career working in development and agricultural economics. In his 1980 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Schultz suggests that there is some accounting for the behavior of the poor in agriculture. “Farmers, the world over, in dealing with costs, returns, and risks are calculating economic agents. Within their small, individual, allocative domain they are fine‐tuning entrepreneurs, tuning so subtly that many experts fail to recognize how efficient they are” (Schultz 1980).