Bruce Wydick is Professor of Economics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco. His recent work examines the impact of development programs such as microfinance, child sponsorship, and in-kind donation of children's shoes, wheelchairs for the disabled, and clean wood-burning stoves. Other recent work studies the role of hope and aspirations in escaping poverty traps. His academic publications have appeared in the Journal of Political Economy, Economic Journal, Oxford Economic Papers, Journal of Development Economics, and The World Bank Economic Review. He writes a column on global poverty issues for Christianity Today and is a guest contributor to op-ed columns for San Francisco Bay Area newspapers. His book Games In Economic Development is published by Cambridge University Press, and his more recent novel about the lives of coffee growers in Guatemala was published in 2014 by Thomas Nelson (HarperCollins). Professor Wydick holds research affiliations with the Kellogg Institute of International Studies at the University of Notre Dame and the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at the University of California at Berkeley.