Schools, Weddings and Funerals on $2 a Day

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By Carlos Lozada

Friday, June 19, 2009; 8:27 PM

PORTFOLIOS OF THE POOR

How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day

By Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford and Orlanda Ruthven

Princeton Univ. Press

283 pp., $29.95

THE BEAUTIFUL TREE

A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves

By James Tooley

Cato Institute

302 pp., $19.95

For all the billions of dollars devoted to foreign aid, the thousands of economists toiling in international development agencies and the countless think tanks holding conferences on market reforms and "best practices," the big debates over how to end global poverty can be summed up in that most immutable schoolyard standoff:

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