贫穷的本质

贫穷的本质

Posted by bulingfeng on July 26, 2024

Hello everybody, I am your teacher - Li Yongle.

Somebody PM’ed me recently

That he borrowed thousands of yuan from an online loan in order to buy a high-end phone.

Then it became over ten thousand due to multiple compound interest.

He couldn’t pay it or even dare to speak with his family members

Not knowing why would he even buy this stuff.

Actually, many poor people are deeply fond of luxuries.

For example - spending lots of cash to buy a Louis Vuitton bag, buying a fur clothings or organizing a luxurious wedding.

Why are poor people particularly fond of luxury goods?

Not long ago, 2019 noble prizes in economics were granted to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Michael Kremer from Harvard for their researches against poverty.

Today I would like to introduce their researches

To see if we can know more about the proverty through their studies.

First of all, there has been a debate about anti-proverty causes

whether the aids to the poors are worthwhile.

Are aids worth it?

Some be like: BS isn’t it? Of course they are

Otherwise they would starve to death.

However this conclusion is statistically invalid

Since decades ago the whole world aided Africa a lot.

Because sub-Saharan Africa is in extreme poverty.

Thus, we can draw a diagram:

Along with the time

The sum of aids to sub-saharan Africa will be becoming massively more and more

But - any change of African GDP during this period?

What if we draw African’s GDP on this diagram?

Will be like this:

This is the GDP in general. So, in the end, we realise, eh? Nothing happened.

Nothing changed, right

So its worthless

Some may say:

It is due to the corruption in Saharan’s government.

Politicians corrupted all the aids

That is why the aids don’t go to helping out the war-stricken people living in poverty, or they don’t go to building infrastructure.

So the aids were useless

Only cause their governments to become more corrupted

Some say people there have problem

because they will be depending on the aids

How so?

Meaning “I just don’t wanna work at all -

and you give me money - okay, why would I then work instead of waiting for your money?”

So they thought people were going to be dependable

If so,

We might as well stop aiding

There is no need to support

As support only cause the problem to worsen

But the problem is, if support stops, there might be two possibilities

Firstly :support really is useless

without aid Africans start to fend for themselves, their skill levels should improve, right? (draws rising GDP trend against time)

That is one possibility

But the second possibility is, without aid -

hunger will become/remain widespread, people dying everywhere

That is also possible (draws falling GDP trend against time)

if we really stop aid

what happens?

That is like in the Middle Ages

when one falls sick, he goes to worship and pray to gods

others might find a doctor or seek medication

so which is effective? is ask for medicine or ask the help from god

people don’t know, so what do we do?

Now medical advancements tell us we can do experiments.

What kind?

Random comparison. Take those who are almost equally sick

Separate into 3 groups

1 group seek doctor and medicine

1 group worship gods

3rd group as the control, they don’t do anything

Then compare which group of people recover

through this to find out which method is the most effective

So Duflo they all decided

just by watching the stats from their offices

they cannot solve the problem

they need to be immersed in the lives of those in poverty, understand how they live

to know what is the true reason causing poverty

So, they did many kinds of research

Built a poverty experiment lab - Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab

Went deep into many many countries all over the world

Spent 20 years to consolidate their findings

and wrote a book titled Poor Economics

So alot of things we are discussing today

comes from the book

Firstly they discussed the issue of health

The main difference between the poor and the rich is the amount of wealth they have

But health is a factor that cannot be overlooked

Generally the rich are much healthier than the poor

As the poor don’t have the money for medical insurance

for medical checkups

no time for exercising

So their health condition is very bad

Every year there is 9 million people

who die before 5 years old

die at a young age

and these 9 million mostly come from the Sub-Sahara

If one isn’t healthy

he can’t work

can’t earn money

no way to escape poverty

So to solve poverty, they need to solve the health problems

So the book mentioned 2 things

One is vaccination

A lot of illnesses can be controlled by vaccines

Now we have very matured technologies

and we can give the poor people free vaccines

But in reality, there are 25 mil children yearly

without being vaccinated

which means they fall short on being vaccinated

they have no immunity

any infectious diseases and they die

So why aren’t they vaccinated when there is the technology

Is it because of a shortage of funds

Or is it the lack of awareness, thinking that vaccines are bad?

So they decided to investigate

They went to India

Banerjee’s hometown is in India

In India, there is a place called Udaipur

They did many investigations there

there were many many villages

in the big mountains

the percentage of people vaccinated is only 1%

only 1% completed all vaccinations

the rest did not

why not?

First reason, was it because of a lack of technology?

Nope, technology was ok

as the government provided them with the vaccination facility

as long as they go there

the professional nurses will perform vaccinations for them

Then what was not ok? No money, no funds? Nope

Vaccines were provided for free

You can get it at the vaccination facility without any costs

Since its free, then was it the lack of concern of parents for their children?

But they realise the parents were ok too, if children fall sick

parents bring them to the hospitals

spend a lot of money to cure them

So parents care about their children’s health

Then what was the reason for the 1%?

Why aren’t they vaccinated?

They formed a hypothesis

Maybe the parents thought that vaccination was too much work

What does that mean?

Menas this place had many villages

All scattered in high mountains

But the vaccination facility isn’t available in every village

Maybe there is the facility at this point

if you want to go you have to come here

Maybe you will take one day to climb over the mountains

and when you reach, the nurse is irresponsible

She didn’t come for work

Then you have to climb mountains again to get back

So in the end you lost a day of work

Losing a day’s work is no big deal to a rich man

but to a poor man

lost in a day’s work might mean that they don’t have food the next day

So they were trying to avoid that from happening

That is why they don’t go for vaccines

So is this thinking correct?

they need to investigate

in what way?

Firstly, they randomly picked some villages

Random villages

They are held as constant,

nothing is done to them

nothing

They only investigate whether people were vaccinated

those were the villages

Secondly, another random sample of villages were chosen

and I am going to do something

I think the reason is that vaccination is too much work

That is why you are not having vaccines

So they set up more vaccination facilities

found some volunteers

They let the volunteers to operate more vaccination facilities in the villages

They tell them ok you can come for vaccines

Also free

Just that you don’t have to travel so far anymore

Third, they found another sample of villages

random, all random

not only will I provide more vaccination facilities

when you come for vaccination, we will reward you

reward you with 1kg of beans, it’s cheap

If we say vaccines are harmful

then parents won’t come too, right?

So now we are telling you there’s a reward

see if you wanna come

what is the conclusion of the test?

the control group of villages also had some results

who brought their kids over the mountains

how many of them?

only 6%

not up to our expectations

Then what about the villages with more convenient facilities?

How many?

17%, that is already about 3 times more

Ok, so what about the last group with rewards?

the percentage of those vaccinated were 38%

We can compare and see that

with rewards,

the take-up rate of vaccines increased drastically

So he says, “I think the hypothesis is correct”

That the reason for not vaccinating

was that it was too far

we should have the facility in the villages, right?

At the same time, there is a reward of 1kg of beans

If you complete all the vaccinations

I give you a set of pots

then more people will come for vaccinations

Some say we shouldn’t give rewards

It increases the cost

It was supposed to be a right thing

But we have to reward and entice them to come for vaccinations

Isn’t that not suitable?

From Duflo’s research, she realise

That the method which involves rewards

is actually the cheapest

Some may think that is weird

How is it the cheapest?

Because first off 1kg of beans don’t cost much

That is one

Secondly, it greatly increases the coverage of vaccination

Initially, you need 1 year to reach this amount of coverage

Now you only need 1 month

The rest of the 11 months

You saved all the costs of hiring

From this point of view

rewarding is better than not

Duflo gave the government a suggestion based on her research

that is to incorporate rewarding into the process of providing vaccinations

that will increase the coverage of vaccination

and your citizens will healthier, right?

other than the problem of vaccination

there is another health problem that the poor face

what is the illness?

its malaria

malaria kills more than 900 thousand people each year

mostly in Africa

and mostly kids below 5

how is malaria transmitted?

by mosquitoes, right?

So we need to eradicate mosquitoes

or protect people from mosquitoes

with what? with mosquito nets, right?

So we actually have a very simple way to control malaria

using mosquito nets

it’s not expensive

a net treated with insecticide

good quality net costs about 10 USD

Some say, $10 can save a family, that is wonderful

So we just donate money to them

let them buy the nets

But some say no, we can’t give them the nets for free

if you give them for free

they might not use it properly, right?

They may use it for

fishing, or as a wedding dress, right?

Not the right use.

Moreover, if given free

they may grow reliant

and not buy the nets in the future

Next time they won’t buy it no matter the price,

they wait for free ones

that is called being reliant, right?

So is that true?

Duflo and friends say that they don’t know

they have to investigate

so they went to Kenya

they handed out vouchers in several villages

each vouchers were different

some vouchers gave free nets

some require a payment of 1 USD for the nets

some 2 USD

some 3 USD

she want to find out what is the effect

they drew a diagram, x-axis being price

with the vouchers

and how much more you need to pay, could be free

$1, $2, $3

even at the most expensive $3

it is still cheaper than the initial cost of 10 USD

means it is still subsidised

so look, how many will buy the nets with their vouchers?

how do they compare?

if its free, almost 100%

why, its free ofc

who doesn’t want?

If they need to pay $3, then the percentage falls

end up with this trend

about 20% here

about 20%

if they have to pay $3, there will still be people paying for it

so the main question is

how will they use it?

once they have the nets will they use it?

means those who got it for free

whether they use it or not

how will it compare with those who got it for $3?

according to the results, almost no difference

80% of those who took a net will use it for their homes

not as fishing nets

not as wedding gowns

80% will use it appropriately

whether they got the nets for free

or they paid $3

its the same results

In addition, they went to sell nets again in the second year

now they sell them at 2 USD

when they seel it at $2

they want to see

will those that have gotten free nets the first time buy?

will those who have paid $3 last time buy?

results show that whether those who had it for free

or they paid $3

the chances of them repurchases were similiar

second time was $2

so the percentage of people who buy it

is comparable to those who got it at $2 the first time

which means, whether you give them nets for free or not

once they got used to using the nets, they will still buy it the second time

it is not that they were used to having it for free

but they were used to using the nets

they discovered a better way of life

if we

place mosquito nets outside every Kenyan child’s bed

then we can effectively control malaria

even if we could only do so for half of them

the other half will benefit

as we can cut the transmission

these comparisons through investigations were the main feature of their research

let’s move on from health to education

education is another area where the rich and the poor differs gretly

those who had better education had a higher chance of being rich

he will also enable his offsprings to have better education

creating a positive cycle

if we increase the avg years of education in a country by 1 year

do y’all know what will happen?

the country’s GDP will increase by more than 30%

That shows how much education can do, right?

So we always emphasis the need for lifelong education

continuous learning in careers, etc.

9 years of mandatory education in China is going quite well actually

but many other developing countries aren’t doing enough

The first problem we face is

how to keep students in school

the problem of dropping out of school

Which is how to increase the duration of education

Increase the duration of education

That is the basic requirement, right?

Completing 9 years of mandatory education

must be better than only 3 years of mandatory education, right?

India isn’t doing very well

So they went to India again

to conduct comparison researches

they want to spend 100 USD

using $100

which way can increase the avg years of education most effectively?

For eg, maybe there isn’t enough teachers in the village

without enough teachers

there won’t be students, right?

so we use 100 USD to hire teachers

we are talking in terms of avg, so maybe you spent 1000 USD

divide by 10 to get 100 USD, right?

If we hire teachers

how much can we raise the avg years of education by?

according to the results, it can increase 1.7 years

it means that it could be one child who had 1.7 more years of education,

or two kids

each child had 0.85 more years of education

Finally, on average, 100 yuan was spent

As a result, a child’s 1.7 years of reading time was added

Do we have another way?

For example, I can provide free lunch

Say you don’t come to school

Because the family is poor

I tell you now

I have free lunch here

After you come, you can save money

You’re eating right?

Then in this way, some children can also be left in the classroom

This can stay for 2.8 years

It looks better than hiring a teacher, right?

Is there a better way?

He found that many children do not come to school because they are sick

Many are parasite roundworms

Then if we spend this money to deworm their children

If you don’t let them get parasitic disease

They might stay in class

So they used this money to remove insects

It turned out that this time when we found the pest control

Every $100 spent can increase the length of study for 28.6 years

So deworming is a very effective way

Is there any other way

Then there is another way to educate parents

Many children do not come to class because parents have problems with their ideas

It’s useless to say that parents feel that reading

Like buying a lottery ticket, say I have ten children

One or two of my ten children may be powerful

I just send him to study

No one else needs

After reading these two books, it is not necessarily possible to make money

If they learn very well, they can make a lot of money

I will be happy in my old age

If he didn’t make money,

I ended up spending the money in vain

In comparison

What do they think of reading as a lottery ticket?

But we have to tell him

In fact, reading is not buying a lottery ticket

But a solid investment

On average, if you read one more year, you read less than one year

Your salary will be 8% higher

This is statistical

And reading is also a gift from parents to children

It means you gave him birth

You should give him such a gift

He is not just a property of you

Not your money-making tool, right?

So our country is doing better in this respect

When we were young, we all knew that reading is both a right and an obligation

If you don’t send your child to school,

That’s right to catch the parents, right?

Then if you implement this concept to parents

How many years of study can be increased by 40 years

Because it doesn’t cost much to implement the concept

So if you spend $100,

You will find that you can increase the number of years of study by 40 years

This efficiency is very high, right

So Difero suggested that the Indian government

What should we do to keep our children in class

The first one, we should deworm the children, right?

If you don’t exterminate

Then he won’t come if the child is sick

Second, you need to educate your parents well

You educated him well

The child will stay in class

For example, when we recruit workers

Say more that we must have a degree or above

This way parents look at these girls

She can’t find a job if she doesn’t study

So let them go to school

Parents sent them over, right?

So they made such a suggestion to the Indian government

This proposal proved to be very effective in the end

Okay, it’s not enough to increase your education time.

You have to improve the quality of education

If you stay in class, right?

I didn’t do anything, I didn’t learn anything, what’s the use?

So we have to improve the quality of education

How to improve the quality of education

Why do these children have poor academic performance?

He also took a survey

What did you find?

The first very important reason is that there are many public schools in India

We know that public schools in India are bad by comparison, right?

Those teachers in this public school are absent for no reason

Teacher absenteeism

In other words, it’s time for your class

The teacher is not there, right? The teacher is absent

Teachers are absent, can students learn?

This is the first question

So they suggested that we should install these schools

Punch card system

If it is face recognition or fingerprint recognition

Anyway, I have to punch him through a method

So he won’t be absent from work

Only in this way can teachers stay in the classroom

Then students can improve, right?

This is the first thing

The second thing is that many people donated some

Such as textbooks for these children

It turned out that after the child got these books

No improvement in grades

Many fifth grade students in the countryside

I can’t read some of the first grade books

Say why

It turned out that their reading ability was impaired

They have reading difficulties

What is reading disorder

We know that the official language of India is English, right?

Since it is English

Then many of your textbooks are written in English

You give it this reading

He can’t even speak English

How does he read your book

If he can’t read your book, he can’t improve his natural grades.

So it’s no use donating a lot of books

So Difero found a lot of volunteers

Free tutoring for these kids

Teach them to read

It turns out that the effect is very good

After teaching them to read, their scores are soaring, right?

So in fact, although the education level of our country

Better than India

But we also face the same problem

Even our education resources are developing very unfairly

The level of teachers in the big cities is very high

There is no serious teacher in the village

How do we improve the overall quality of education?

Some people say we should donate equipment to the village

Donated a lot of computers, right?

Others say we should improve the living conditions of rural teachers

Others say we should send teachers from big cities

Go to the village to teach

Which one is better

Maybe we need an experimental method to reach a conclusion

This matter is actually a question I have been thinking about

Then we will finally return to the economic problem

We know the most essential difference between the poor and the rich is how much money

Diflo talks about how the poor live in his book

Full of risks

The life of the poor is full of risks

How to understand this sentence

Say why the life of the poor is full of risks

He said we can study such a curve

This abscissa is called today’s wealth

The ordinate of how much money you have today is called tomorrow’s wealth

Tomorrow’s wealth

So if your wealth today is the same as tomorrow’s wealth

Then your wealth will never change, right?

So it has such a diagonal

Every point above is an equilibrium point

For example, at this point, today’s wealth will be the same as tomorrow

So it will always be this wealth value

But this is not the case in real life

If you say you have a lot of money, you can expand reproduction, right?

You can make more money

But if you have less money

After you finish a meal, you will have no money

So you may become poorer

So the actual curve may be this S-shaped

This is a point made by Diflor

It is the actual curve of S shape

So what does this actual curve tell us?

For example, if there is someone who starts to be rich

His wealth today is at this point

At this time, he has more wealth tomorrow than today

So he was at this point the next day

He moved to the right, you know?

He was at this point on the third day and he moved to the right again

So in the end he will reach the equilibrium point on the right

Then we call this wealthy equilibrium

Actually when you first started

Any point on this curve can be

He will move little by little…

You will move to this wealthy equilibrium

But conversely, if there is a person who is poorer, what will happen

For example, he started at this point

At this time, he has less wealth tomorrow than today

He’s here right now do you know

Move little by little… what will happen to him in the end

Will move to this point in the lower left corner

And this point in the lower left corner is the balance of poverty

This is the so-called poverty trap

So why is the life of the poor full of risks

For example, the poor were originally in this position, right?

How can he accumulate wealth a little bit?

Finally get rich

But he was suddenly sick

I came here all of a sudden when I got sick

And fell into a poverty trap

Compared to the rich, it’s much better.

For example, he is in this position

If he is ill, he runs to this position

He just progressed a little slower

He will eventually reach wealthy

And the rich usually buy insurance for themselves

Whether it is health insurance or property insurance, he will buy insurance

But the poor I have a difficult life today

If you let me spend money for tomorrow, I will definitely not spend it

So now our country promotes serious medical insurance

Rural areas also need insurance

This is to prevent farmers from falling into the trap of poverty

Also, we have no principal

The poor have no principal

So it’s hard for him to reach the wealthy class quickly

Say if we can lend him money

Here we have to talk about a person whose name is Yunus

This Yunus is a Bangladeshi

Yunus is a university professor

His living conditions are actually good

There was a famine in Bangladesh in 1974

So Yunus went to the street to investigate

Take a look at the life of the poor

Found a framed peasant woman

He asked her how much money you can make in a day

She said I can’t buy bamboo without principal

So I borrow 22 cents a day to buy bamboo

Make a frame after buying bamboo

Then sell the box back to the person who loaned it

That’s because this is a transaction, right?

When you loan money, you must sell him the frame

I can earn 2 cents a day for 24 cents

Then Yunus asked

How much can you earn if I lend you 1 dollar

She said if you lent me a dollar

I can buy bamboo

I can make $1 a day

As a result, Yunus was shocked.

He said that we university professors should be ashamed

We were in the office all day

Bubble tea to study the economic situation

But there is no one dollar to lend to such a peasant woman

So he paid $27 and lent it to 45 peasants

Let them make bamboo baskets

Slowly developed into a small loan company

Grameen Bank

This Grameen Bank eventually won Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize

Because he helped a lot of civilians in Bangladesh

But some people say that microfinance companies

It seems not as sacred as you said

After many people borrowed money from microfinance companies

He did not expand his production

He bought the money to buy an iPhone

Even he had to cut off his kidney to buy an iPhone

Why the poor have such a big preference for luxury goods

Here we have another question

Is how the poor use money

He is still very different from the rich

An example is mentioned in the study of Diflo

This example is called TV is more important than food

What is TV more important than food?

He went to a village to observe

It turns out that this village is very poor

Many children lack nutrition

Looks very strange

Then he also found that many houses in this village have TV sets

He asked how did you buy this TV

He said I saved money for many years

I bought a TV

He said that now you don’t see enough nutrition

Why do you buy a TV

As a result, the poor man said that TV is more important than food

Why is this so

After analyzing, DiFlo thinks that the life of the poor is very boring

Because he is running for his life every day, if he has a little money

He wanted to make his life more interesting

It’s even less boring, so if you give him a little money,

He will eat a good meal, such as a braised pork, right?

Then if you give him more money

He would buy a TV

Even she might buy an LV bag

Or an Apple phone, right?

Maybe we think he should save this money

So you can get rid of the poverty trap little by little

And then reached the wealthy class

But you should pay attention to this will face great difficulties

For example, if the poor wants to save money, he may have to quit smoking

That means I have to smoke one less cigarette every day, right?

Also I may not be able to eat meat

I can’t buy the TV I want to buy

I can’t even get the phone I want

Then I will become rich gradually

You need to overcome your desires again and again

But the rich don’t need this

The rich want to smoke

So they are more likely to succeed than the poor

Some people say that being rich will increase patience

Watching the wealth increase a little bit

And poverty makes people impatient

For example, if you find Bill Gates

You say I increase your assets by 1% every day

Then he wants to turn you into a CEO, right?

But if you find a poor man

You told him that I increased your assets by 1% every day

He may ignore you

Because he has too little money

He did not believe he could cross this poverty trap

Reach the wealthy class

So it is essentially a question of confidence

In addition to talking about TV

In fact, another very bad phenomenon is the funeral

Then the poorer the place, the more grand the funeral will be.

What is a saying

I didn’t enjoy a good life when I called this person alive

If you die, you must be beautiful

But in fact the funeral has no meaning for the living

Instead, it will pull you into this poverty trap

Difero once did an investigation

Money for funerals in many places in Africa

Spend more than 40% of household income in a year

So this waste is actually quite serious

Maybe we think that the poor are poor

Is it because their willpower is not enough or their IQ is not enough

If we are a poor man with rich thinking

So sooner or later we will become rich

Is this right?

There is a best-selling author named Barbara in the United States

Hong Kong has a business tycoon who makes pants

Tian Beichen

In order to experience the life of the poor

And verify that you can change from poor to rich

They went to a place penniless to work

Sometimes I go to sweep the street

Sometimes they are waiters in the restaurant

They found that after working for more than ten hours a day

Still penniless

They have no way to achieve their ambitions

They also have no time to think

How can I make my life better

So the problem of poverty is definitely not something that can be explained by laziness

What we want to discuss is not whether we should assist the poor

It’s a question of how to aid

After the Nobel Prize in Economics won

Many people expressed their dissatisfaction

Because their work does not seem to be orthodox economics

But I think it is purely controversial and questioning

Does not solve the problem of poverty

Dufferlo’s work does point to a possible path

We need scientists looking up at the starry sky

We also need down-to-earth people

Only in this way can our society become better and better

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