Games in Economic Development examines the roots of poverty and prosperity through the lens of elementary game theory, illustrating how patterns of human interaction can lead to vicious cycles of poverty as well as virtuous cycles of prosperity. This book shows how both social norms and carefully designed institutions can help shape the 'rules of the game', making better outcomes in a game possible for everyone involved. The book is entertaining to read, it can be accessed with little background in development economics or game theory. Its chapters explore games in natural resource use; education; coping with risk; borrowing and lending; technology adoption; governance and corruption; civil conflict; international trade; and the importance of networks, religion, and identity, illustrating concepts with numerous anecdotes from recent world events. Comes complete with an appendix, explaining the basic ideas in game theory used in the book.
The global coffee trade is a collision between the rich world and the poor world. A group of graduate students is about to experience that collision head-on. Angela, Alex, Rich, and Sofi a bring to their summer research project in Guatemala more than their share of grad-school baggage—along with clashing ideas about poverty and globalization. But as they follow the trail of coffee beans from the Guatemalan peasant grower to the American coffee drinker, what unfolds is not only a stunning research discovery, but an unforgettable journey of personal challenge and growth. Based on an actual research project on fair trade coffee funded by USAID, The Taste of Many Mountains is a brilliantly-staged novel about the global economy in which University of San Francisco economist Bruce Wydick examines the realities of the coffee trade from the perspective of young researchers struggling to understand the chasm between the world’s rich and poor. “Wydick’s first novel is brewed perfectly—full of rich body with double-shots of insight.” —Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado, President and CEO of Compassion International "This wonderfully enlightening book describes the Mayan culture in Guatemala and some of the sufferings these people have survived." —CBA Retailers + Resources Includes Reading Group Guide
If we want to genuinely help people living in poverty rather than just feel good about believing we've helped, we are not meant to be just Good Samaritans. We must be Shrewd Samaritans.
Learn to live the message of the Good Samaritan and make a global impact, using the resources already at your disposal. If there were a popularity contest among all the parables of Jesus, the Good Samaritan would probably win. Nobody is against the Good Samaritan because being against the Good Samaritan is like being against Mother Theresa or Oskar Schindler or the firefighters who ran into the World Trade Center. In that same popularity contest, the Shrewd Manager would probably finish last. The Shrewd Manager is lazy, deceitful, and double-crossing. Yet in this alluringly freakish parable, Jesus actually holds up the Shrewd Manager as an example, as he does with the Good Samaritan. This book is about learning to live the message of the Good Samaritan in the context of the globalized world of the twenty-first century. This means learning to love our global neighbor wisely by harnessing the resources at our disposal—our time, talents, opportunities, and money—on behalf of those who are victims of injustice, disease, violence, and poverty. The early disciples were pretty clueless about worldly resources such as time, talent, and money—and unfortunately today we still don’t really get it. There are too many kind, well-intentioned twenty-first-century people with indisputably good intentions but whose impact on the needy is hampered by their inability to diagnose problems properly, harness the resources available to them to solve the right problems, and understand cause-and-effect relationships. Shrewd Samaritan will help develop a framework to better love and care for our neighbors in an age of globalization, when the people in our neighborhoods, or at least those in our potential sphere of influence, has expanded dramatically. Increasingly it will become our global neighbor who takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with the needs of a broken world.
Learn to live the message of the Good Samaritan and make a global impact, using the resources already at your disposal. If there were a popularity contest among all the parables of Jesus, the Good Samaritan would probably win. Nobody is against the Good Samaritan because being against the Good Samaritan is like being against Mother Theresa or Oskar Schindler or the firefighters who ran into the World Trade Center. In that same popularity contest, the Shrewd Manager would probably finish last. The Shrewd Manager is lazy, deceitful, and double-crossing. Yet in this alluringly freakish parable, Jesus actually holds up the Shrewd Manager as an example, as he does with the Good Samaritan. This book is about learning to live the message of the Good Samaritan in the context of the globalized world of the twenty-first century. This means learning to love our global neighbor wisely by harnessing the resources at our disposal—our time, talents, opportunities, and money—on behalf of those who are victims of injustice, disease, violence, and poverty. The early disciples were pretty clueless about worldly resources such as time, talent, and money—and unfortunately today we still don’t really get it. There are too many kind, well-intentioned twenty-first-century people with indisputably good intentions but whose impact on the needy is hampered by their inability to diagnose problems properly, harness the resources available to them to solve the right problems, and understand cause-and-effect relationships. Shrewd Samaritan will help develop a framework to better love and care for our neighbors in an age of globalization, when the people in our neighborhoods, or at least those in our potential sphere of influence, has expanded dramatically. Increasingly it will become our global neighbor who takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with the needs of a broken world.
The global coffee trade is a collision between the rich world and the poor world. A group of graduate students is about to experience that collision head-on. Angela, Alex, Rich, and Sofi a bring to their summer research project in Guatemala more than their share of grad-school baggage—along with clashing ideas about poverty and globalization. But as they follow the trail of coffee beans from the Guatemalan peasant grower to the American coffee drinker, what unfolds is not only a stunning research discovery, but an unforgettable journey of personal challenge and growth. Based on an actual research project on fair trade coffee funded by USAID, The Taste of Many Mountains is a brilliantly-staged novel about the global economy in which University of San Francisco economist Bruce Wydick examines the realities of the coffee trade from the perspective of young researchers struggling to understand the chasm between the world’s rich and poor. “Wydick’s first novel is brewed perfectly—full of rich body with double-shots of insight.” —Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado, President and CEO of Compassion International "This wonderfully enlightening book describes the Mayan culture in Guatemala and some of the sufferings these people have survived." —CBA Retailers + Resources Includes Reading Group Guide
Games in Economic Development examines the roots of poverty and prosperity through the lens of elementary game theory, illustrating how patterns of human interaction can lead to vicious cycles of poverty as well as virtuous cycles of prosperity. This book shows how both social norms and carefully designed institutions can help shape the 'rules of the game', making better outcomes in a game possible for everyone involved. The book is entertaining to read, it can be accessed with little background in development economics or game theory. Its chapters explore games in natural resource use; education; coping with risk; borrowing and lending; technology adoption; governance and corruption; civil conflict; international trade; and the importance of networks, religion, and identity, illustrating concepts with numerous anecdotes from recent world events. Comes complete with an appendix, explaining the basic ideas in game theory used in the book.
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