Posted in Microfinance, The village, tagged cashless village, currency, Dan Ariely, mobile banking, mobile phone, moral hazard, Nina Mazar, technology, tokens on April 26, 2011| 3 Comments »
A number of mobile banking experts have been envisioning the ‘cash-less village’, in which villagers pay for groceries and services on their mobile phones. But, in his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist at Duke University, shows how the degree of abstraction of our currency can lead us to experience greater and greater distance from our ethical values, increasing moral hazard.
Posted in History, Orality, Village institutions, tagged counting, literacy, Mesopotamia, numeracy, Schmandt-Besserat, tokens on April 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
The work of Denise Schmandt-Besserat is reshaping our concept of the origins of writing and counting, shedding new light on both the challenges and opportunities in village finance practice.
A scholar of ancient Near Eastern studies at the University of Texas, her books provide strong evidence of her thesis that writing in Mesopotamia came long after strong institutions. It evolved from “a system of tokens – (more…)
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