Poor Economics Wins Business Book of the Year

From The San Francisco Chronicle / Bloomberg News 11/4/2011:

Poor Economics : A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, has been named the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year.

In Poor Economics the authors use randomized control trials, similar to the type used to assess new drugs, to study the behavior of poor people and analyze ways to alleviate poverty. Addressing topics from health to education, the authors build a shrewd yet sympathetic portrait of a complex problem.

Notably absent from the award's shortlist were titles addressing the financial crisis. Last year, books on the subject were so prevalent that Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., recused himself from judging.

Other shortlisted titles are:
         The Quest: Energy, Security and Remaking the Modern World
                by Daniel Yergin
         Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer,
         Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
                 by Edward Glaeser
         Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril
                 by Margaret Heffernan
         Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters
                 by Richard P. Rumelt
         Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future
         of the International Monetary System
                 by Barry Eichengreen