PI display:
Chris Blattman
ISPS ID:
P10-001
Date:
May 1, 2010 through August 1, 2011
Status:
Ongoing
Location:
Location details:
Africa - Liberia
Context:
Development / Poverty alleviation program
Planning document / hypotheses:
• What are the economic and psychological roots of poverty? Do poverty traps exist, in either the form of psychological and behavioral traits or capital constraints?
• In light of these roots, what poverty alleviation strategies work and why?
• Do the economic and psychological forces that drive poverty also lead to crime and violence?
• Does poverty alleviation also reduce crime and violence? If so, what does this imply for theories of violence?
Sample size:
Approximately 1,000 street youth
Abstract:
This is a study of poverty, psychology and violence among poor urban youth in post-war Liberia. The research is designed around a set of experimental poverty alleviation programs designed by the author and Julian Jamison, a behavioral economist at the Federal Reserve research department together with Harvard Psychologist Margaret Sheridan. For a full description of the study, and links to any publications, go to http://www.poverty-action.org/project/0166.
Discipline:
Area of study:
Last updated:
January 9, 2012