Abhijit Banerjee Quotes

There was no welfare state, and people had to rely mainly on the Poor Law - that was all the state provided. It was very degrading, very humiliating. And there was a means test for receiving poor relief.

With fewer resources to share around more people, how can the poor have improved lifestyles?

Any mechanism that will ensure benefits to consumer, any mechanism that will ensure that we do not waste food grains, any mechanism that helps the poorest of the poor is a welcome step.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

International development aid is based on the Robin Hood principle: take from the rich and give to the poor.

I believe that investing in welfare is crucial - but I also believe that it only works if you're getting help to those who need it. If you're doing it with no results, it's disastrous.

We often have an exaggerated sense of what nonprofits and governments are doing to help the poor, but the really inspiring thing is how much the poor are doing to help themselves.

Alleviating poverty would be the Bank's overarching objective.

If you don't improve the lives of the poor, it's not charity.

The poor who have neither property, friends, nor strength to labor are boarded in the houses of good farmers, to whom a stipulated sum is annually paid. To those who are able to help themselves a little or have friends from whom they derive some succor, inadequate however to their full maintenance, supplementary aids are given which enable them to live comfortably in their own houses or in the houses of their friends. Vagabonds without visible property or vocation, are placed in work houses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor.

We need to build an Argentina with zero poverty.

An economy growing at 7 percent per year, can and must find the resources to improve the lives of its millions of poor.

A safety net for the poor indeed requires some level of income redistribution.

I have committed my life to helping the poor, and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart's lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream.

With political will and strategic initiatives, we can prevent more and more of our global neighbors from falling into the abyss of poverty and instead give future generations the opportunities they need to rise to their fullest potential.

There has long been a debate in the aid community and in Africa about how to most effectively help situations of poverty in developing nations and underprivileged communities.

World Bank is a bank that's focused on economic development and poverty alleviation.

In fact, effective solidarity with the poor, both individual persons and entire nations, is indispensable for the construction of peace.

Taking responsible steps to reduce poverty is not merely a moral imperative but an economic one.

I think food and education will help stem the poverty of the young people who are being drawn into terrorism every day.

I applaud the growing commitment of Evangelicals to the needs of the poor and oppressed in urban America.

However imperfectly, subsidies for the poor do actually reduce hunger, ease suffering and create opportunity, while subsidies for the rich result in more private jets and yachts. Would we rather subsidize opportunity or yachts? Which kind of subsidies deserve more scrutiny?

My mission is to eradicate poverty.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.