The Financial Diaries draws on 5 years of fieldwork and analysis led with Rachel Schneider and carried out with Tim Ogden and a large research team. The book gives a new view of economic insecurity and poverty in America, drawing on the stories of families across the country and detailed evidence on their financial lives. The University of Manchester’s Diane Coyle named it one of the best economics books of 2017, and the book received a 2018 Axiom Best Business Book Silver Award. (November 2018 paperback).
Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider. The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty. Princeton University Press, March 2017.
About the book / About the US Financial Diaries project / Endorsements
One of the best economics books of 2017, Fivebooks.
Axiom Best Business Book Silver Award 2018, Economics
Reviews and related coverage:
Česká Pozice (Czech Republic). “Americké rodiny sužuje nestabilita příjmů.” By Petr Kain. July 11, 2018.
Journal of Cultural Economy. “Innovating and improvising the social contract in the US financial borderscape.” By Mark Kear. April 24, 2018.
Brookings Institution. The Avenue (blog). “Managing Uncertainty: Paycheck Volatility Demands New Responses.” By Mark Muro and Clara Hendrickson. March 1, 2018.
BBC Radio 4. More or Less: Behind the Stats. Interview with Rachel Schneider on The Financial Diaries. January 22, 2018.
New Books Network (Podcast). Conversation on The Financial Diaries with Stephen Pimpare. November 21, 2017.
Motley Fool Answers. The One Certainty in Personal Finances Today Is Uncertainty. Video interview with Robert Brokamp. November 15, 2017.
Next Billion. “The Financial Lives of Struggling Americans.” Review by Elisabeth Rhyne. October 18, 2017.
Foreign Affairs. Review by Walter Russell Mead. September/October 2017 Issue.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. “Review: The Financial Diaries” By Luisa Blanco. Vol. 36, No. 4, 957–959 (2017).
New York Review of Books. “America: The Forgotten Poor.” Review by Jeff Madrick. June 22, 2017 issue.
CNN/Money. “What Trump doesn’t understand about the poor.” by Heather Long. June 15, 2017.
New York Times. “Steady Paycheck, Shaky Income, Rising Angst” by Patricia Cohen. Page A1. June 1, 2017.
Stanford Social Innovation Review. Ron Haskins review of The Financial Diaries. “The Closer You Look, the Worse it Seems.” Summer 2017 issue [print edition.] May 17, 2017 (online).
London School of Economics Review of Books blog. Joe Lane review of The Financial Diaries.
San Francisco Review of Books. David Wineberg review of The Financial Diaries.
Marketplace (public radio). “Americans are worrying about financial security even when they have jobs.” Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider interview with Kai Ryssdal. May 17, 2017.
Publisher’s Weekly. (Starred Review) “REVIEW: The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty.” March 1, 2017.
Times Higher Education. “REVIEW: The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty, by Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider.” By Lisa Mckenzie. May 4, 2017.
Forbes. “How These 9 Families Deal With Living Paycheck To Paycheck.” By Lauren Gensler. April 10, 2017.
Truthdig. “Book Review: The Financial Diaries.” By Alexis Camins. April 14, 2017.
Enlightened Economist blog. Diane Coyle: Review of The Financial Diaries. April 11, 2017.
Washington Post. “Why some families who save constantly are still struggling to make ends meet.” By Jonnelle Marte. April 11, 2017.
CBS News/MoneyWatch. “The United States of Insecurity.” By Aimee Picchi. April 17, 2017.
MarketWatch. “How American families manage roller-coaster finances.” By Richard Eisenberg. April 25, 2017.
CBS News. “5 Signs You’re No Longer Middle Class.” By Aimee Picchi. April 26, 2017.
Money Magazine (Time.com online). “These 3 Charts Show Why Middle Class Workers Are Struggling to Get Ahead Today.” By Rob Wile. Apr 17, 2017.
Leonard Lopate Show. WNYC. How we spend money (Interview with Jonathan Morduch: 32 minutes). April 18, 2017. Audio.
NYU News. “The Plight of the Sometimes Poor.” By Eileen Reynolds. April 2017.
PBS NewsHour. “Why Americans aren’t good at rebounding from financial emergencies — and how you can get better.” By Kristen Doerer. April 18, 2017.
American Banker. “When there’s too much month at the end of the money.” By Alan Klein. April 24, 2017 [Cover Story – Issue on Redefining Financial Inclusion]
Bob Sullivan The Restless Project. “Don’t know how much money is coming in next month? That’s the (new) American way – it’s called ‘precarity’.” April 27, 2017.
USA Today. “Why even full-time workers struggle with expenses.” By Bob Sullivan. May 3, 2017.
Wall Street Journal. “Fintech Apps Bring Stability to Stressed Families. New apps help people save more money, pay bills and cope with fluctuations in income.” By David Wessel. April 25, 2017.
Christian Science Monitor. “Worker anxiety at 4.4 percent unemployment? It’s about hidden volatility.” By Schuyler Velasco. May 5, 2017.
Next City. “Financial Diaries Show Stability Matters as Much as Mobility.” By Oscar Perry Abello. April 26, 2017.
Investing.com. “Morduch and Schneider, The Financial Diaries.” By Brenda Jubin. May 3, 2017
Medium. “Why We Invested: US Financial Diaries.” By Sarah Morgenstern, Omidyar Network. April 19, 2017.
So Money [podcast], Episode 562. Farnoosh Torabi interviews Rachel Schneider about The Financial Diaries. April 2017.
Next Billion. “Dear Diary: New Financial Diaries Research Explains Why Many Americans are So Angry.” By James Millitzer. (With podcast). April 24, 2017.
Nasdaq. “Fintech and Digital Wallets Are The Core Of Financial Inclusion.” By Due.com. May 5, 2017.
Spark Magazine. “Narratives that Inform Our Work.” By Tracey Fischman. May 4, 2017.
Dean Karlan and Jonathan Morduch. Economics, 2025. McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Starts with real-world problems and shows how economists think about them (and can help to solve them). The latest edition brings in more (and different) voices, more evidence, more examples, and an updated approach to monetary policy.
Dean Karlan and Jonathan Morduch. Economics, 2nd edition
. McGraw-Hill/Irwin, February 2017.
“Positive. Practical. Empirical.” Preface (1st edition). Sample chapters (1st edition): Economics and Life / Markets / Behavioral Economics / Measuring the Wealth of Nations
Economics (1st Canadian edition) with Dean Karlan, Rafat Alam and Andrew Wong. 2017. McGraw-Hill.
Economics (1st Australian edition) with Dean Karlan, Christopher Bajada and Mark Melatos. 2016. McGraw-Hill
Economics (1st Chinese language edition) with Dean Karlan. 2016. McGraw-Hill/Huazhang-China Machine Press. Amazon.cn: Economics (Micro) , Economics (Macro)
Robert Cull, Jonathan Morduch, and Asli Demirgüç-Kunt (editors). Banking the World: Empirical Foundations of Financial Inclusion. MIT Press, 2012.
Beatriz Armendáriz and Jonathan Morduch. The Economics of Microfinance, 2nd edition. MIT Press, 2010.
About the book / Chapter 1 / Economía de las microfinanzas
Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a Day. Princeton University Press, 2009.
About the project / Chapter 1 / Mark Zuckerberg’s Year of Books / Las Finanzas de los Pobres