Book review: Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

Posted by National Housing Institute on April 13, 2015

Economic Security First
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. Times Books, 2013

By Miriam Axel-Lute Posted on February 4, 2015

It’s not often that you get a new hardcover book in your conference swag. But CFED decided it was worth weighing down the luggage of everyone at their Assets Learning Conference in September with a copy of Scarcity.

I have to say I agree.

In Scarcity, Mullainathan, a behavioral economist, and Shafir, a cognitive scientist, explore how brains react to the experience of scarcity—whether it’s poverty, extreme busyness, or other types of scarcity, such as the enforced calorie scarcity of dieters. (They recognize that poverty is the most important of these, and it is clearly their real target.)

Their conclusion, supported by numerous fascinating research experiments, is that scarcity affects brain function. It has some positives—the focus dividend, what happens when you can suddenly work because of an impending deadline. It’s also the reason many people in poverty are such masters at stretching a dollar. However, it has negative effects as well, from over-focus (which they call tunneling) to dramatic reductions in certain kinds of brain function, including executive function, which allows for self-control and willpower. The authors speak at length about what they call the “bandwidth tax” of functioning under scarcity.

Scarcity would be useful reading for anyone who has been poor, works with the poor, or has opinions about poverty. One of its greatest strengths is the way it describes the experience of poverty in great scientific and conceptual detail without victim-blaming. The authors don’t fall into the trap of blaming poverty on culture, behavior, or inherent deficits, but they also don’t sidestep the fact that many people in poverty exhibit patterns of poor choices and poor cognitive functioning. The authors make a powerful case that these are effects of poverty, not causes.

http://www.shelterforce.org/article/4032/economic_security_first/