poverty

The World Bank was founded toward the end of World War II by representatives from the 44 Allied nations. Its stated mission was to reduce poverty in developing countries through direct loans. Currently, the organization manages 1,600 projects in 172 countries and in 2012 provided approximately $30 billion in loans.

Research has shown that fair-trade transactions — in which relatively wealthy global consumers purchase goods produced by less affluent producers — appeal to consumers’ ethical and altruistic impulses and can provide much-needed resources to producers. Inquiry has been limited, though, on the extent to which overall living standards among producers are truly improved. Marketing claims about the purported benefits of fair trade and its contribution to “ethical globalization” rest on related premises.

Are charter schools better for children? The answer depends on context. And it’s not an unequivocal “yes,” at least based on evidence from test scores: One of the most comprehensive randomized studies to date, published in 2010 by the National Center for Education Evaluation, found that charter schools were no more effective than public ones in raising math and reading outcomes.

Policy decisions concerning education programming and early interventions are increasingly driven by documented results from long-term academic studies. The Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS) has now tracked the education and post-education experiences of 1,539 families, most of which participated in the Child-Parent Center (CPC) Education Program (the second-oldest federally funded preschool program, behind Head Start).

Studies have shown that young people growing up in poorer neighborhoods experience multiple forms of deprivation, including resource-poor schools, elevated levels of crime and violence, and restricted labor markets. In 1994 a federal program called “Moving to Opportunity” (MTO) used vouchers to help a group of randomly assigned families move from “highly distressed” public housing projects to neighborhoods with less poverty.

The need to “put a face” on a humanitarian crisis and give it individual particularity is premised on a well-established phenomenon: As the numbers of a group experiencing suffering increases, the level of compassion felt for that group typically decreases. However, the mechanism behind this apparently counterintuitive dynamic — declining compassion as the level of suffering increases — has long resisted understanding.