• Compares the lives of two children in the Developed and Developing Worlds, and uses this as a key to uncover the processes that shape our lives and our futures.
• Shows how economics uncovers and explains these processes, and how it can form solutions and policies.
• Up-to-date and progressive, this short book is written by an internationally recognized authority in the field.
• Introduces key economic factors and concepts such as individual choices, national policies, efficiency, equity, development, sustainability, dynamic equilibrium, property rights, markets, and public goods.
• Ties in politics, anthropology, ecology, geography, sociology, and development studies.

  
Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life, and offer solutions to them too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: in the Mid-West USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them, and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions. 
 
Along the way, Dasgupta provides an intelligent and accessible introduction to key economic factors and concepts such as individual choices, national policies, efficiency, equity, development, sustainability, dynamic equilibrium, property rights, markets, and public goods.