Portfolios of the Poor ~ $2/Day Family Finances

Thanks to the Economist article Smooth operators for spotting the much needed and very timely new book Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven...

"Over 250 families in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa participated in this unprecedented study of the financial practices of the world's poor. These households were interviewed every two weeks over the course of a year, reporting on their most minute financial transactions. This book shows that many poor people have surprisingly sophisticated financial lives, saving and borrowing with an eye to the future and creating complex "financial portfolios" of formal and informal tools."

See here Chapter One. We will be incorporating this in our Fall 2009 MIT Development Ventures class.