List of Useful Resources
The table below lists resources I have found useful in building my own understanding of data, information and international development. Neither I or this site are affiliated with any of the resources listed, unless otherwise noted. The “links” column hyperlinks to the resources. I make an effort to check each resource listed to ensure it is “ok” to link to their pages. Please check the “Disclaimer” page for more information on links to external pages.
| Resource | Description | Focus | Type | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duflo, Esther and Abhijit Banerjee. 2011. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Public Affairs | Essential reference on how to think about foreign aid and fighting poverty written by a Nobel laureate couple. | International Development/ Poverty/ Foreign Aid | Book/ Report | Bookshop.org |
| Eagleman, David. 2017. The Brain: The Story of You. New York: Vintage Books. | A reader friendly introduction to how our brain works and makes us who we are. | Cognition | Book/ Report | Bookshop.org |
| Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux | A fascinating book with a lifetime of lessons by a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty. | Cognition | Book/ Report | Bookshop.org |
| Kozyrkov, Cassie | Chief Decision Scientist at Google. Thought-provoking and great presenter, has a knack for explaining not so simple stuff in simple ways. Blogs in several places and has a YouTube Channel. I share a couple of links but she posts on other places as well. | Data Science | Blog, Vlog | Medium YouTube |
| Mlodinow, Leonard. 2009. The Drunkard’s Walk. How Randomness Rules Our Lives. New York: Vintage Books | A nice read from a leading scientist on how statistical thinking developed and explains much of what we experience, although we may often fail to recognize the randomness that surrounds us. | Statistics | Book/ Report | Bookshop.org |
| Stiglitz, Joseph E; Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. 2010. Mis-Measuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up. New York: The New York Press. | An authoritative book on the limitations and alternatives to our reliance on GDP as an indicator of living standards | International Development | Book/Report | Bookshop.org |
| Study Hall Data Literacy | A well done series of videos on data literacy produced by Arizona State University and Crash Course. Crash Course is a YouTube channel of educational videos. They also have other courses that may be useful, such as courses on statistics and on artificial intelligence. | Data Science | eLearning | YouTube |
| World Bank. World Development Reports. Washington D.C: The World Bank Group | The World Bank’s flagship annual publication has a featured topic every year. A few recent editions of particular interest for this site are those for 2021 (Data for Better Lives) and 2015 (Mind, Society and Behavior) | International Development | Book/ Report | World Bank |