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Monday, January 31, 2011

Pay the Poor

The Bangladeshi city of Chittagong has come up with an interesting way of getting rid of beggars: Paying them.  Read the full article from the BBC here.

2 comments:

  1. The aside about making a list to keep other beggars (and maybe other people who want to make a quick buck) from claiming the benefit speaks volumes. When using incentives to solve problems it's important to consider everyone's incentives, not just the target group. There's a fascinating research paper here if anybody can get their hands on the data.

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  2. Does anyone have more information about what's going on?

    From the limited information here, it's not clear to me that this article shows a solution--except in a perverse understanding of the term. To me it looks more like demonstration of how to push aside the unsightly, socially unwanted, and economically disadvantaged so they don't ruin a country's image or upset the sensibilities of cricket goers.

    To me, the list of beggars looks more like an attempt to make the poor legible to the state and therefore controllable than any real attempt to solve the problem of poverty. The stated purpose is to keep beggars from flooding into Dhaka and to put them into "welfare centers" until the end of the world cup.

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