This paper uses household surveys from 13 developing countries to describe consumption choices, health and education investments, employment patterns and other features of the of the economic lives of the middle classes defined as those whose daily consumption per capita is between $2 and $4 or...

"Billions of government dollars, and thousands of charitable organizations and NGOs, are dedicated to helping the world's poor. But much of the work they do is based on assumptions that are untested generalizations at best, flat out harmful misperceptions at worst. Banerjee and Duflo have...