Esther Duflo: Most Promising U.S. Economist
Countries: Britain, Haiti, India, United States
Esther Duflo is once again in the news, this time for having won the John Bates Clark medal. This is awarded by the American Economic Association to the most promising economist in the U.S. under the age of 40. We last wrote about Duflo's work on Global Envision back in May.
Duflo is a 37-year-old native of France and an alumni and professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Duflo is also the director of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, founded in 2003 with her MIT colleague Abhijit Banerjee and Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan.
Duflo's use of randomized controlled trials to assess aid effectiveness has become a hot topic among economists and the humanitarian community. Randomized controlled trials have been successfully used by drug companies, so why not for social policy measures? Controlled studies allow researchers to discover what works, what does not work, and why does it not work in a systematic scientific method. Sometimes the technology, the infrastructure, the funding, and the intention to "do good" is in place, but how do you know if the system is effective if you do not have a means for measuring progress and results?
Duflo is featured in this 16-minute TED talk, Esther Duflo: social experiments in poverty. In her talk she shows how her work with randomized trials has revealed answers to pressing issues in aid, like is it better to give away malaria nets for free, or make people pay for them? Watch the video to learn the answer.
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Comments
Aid
I think all programs need to be tested to make sure that the money is actually being focused on what it was intended and that it is actually working. As the government has plainly proven, there are many programs that are simply not working.
Great video on how aid can
Great video on how aid can work to make a difference. That's the question to remind our policy makers: what kind of aid can make a difference. Great issue to put on the post today. Thanks!
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