A Nobel Prize Winner on Rethinking Poverty (and Business)

Esther Duflo, an MIT economist, won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Duflo’s early life working at a non-governmental organization in Madagascar and volunteering in soup kitchens in her native France inspired her to study economics and research the root causes of poverty. With her fellow Nobel winners Abhijit Banerjee of MIT and Michael Kremer of Harvard, Duflo showed that effective policies often go against conventional wisdom and popular economic models. The only way to find out what works, she argues, is to rigorously test solutions on the ground, and she encourages businesses to do the same. With Banerjee, Duflo also wrote the new book "Good Economics for Hard Times."

Share Podcast

[HBR IdeaCast podcast series]

HBR IdeaCast
Episode 711

A Nobel Prize Winner on Rethinking Poverty (and Business)

Listen | Podcast loading...

###

Esther Duflo, an MIT economist, won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Duflo’s early life working at a...

• Subscribe:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

RSS

All episodes

Details

Transcript

November 26, 2019

Esther Duflo, an MIT economist, won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Duflo’s early life working at a non-governmental organization in Madagascar and volunteering in soup kitchens in her native France inspired her to study economics and research the root causes of poverty. With her fellow Nobel winners Abhijit Banerjee of MIT and Michael Kremer of Harvard, Duflo showed that effective policies often go against conventional wisdom and popular economic models. The only way to find out what works, she argues, is to rigorously test solutions on the ground, and she encourages businesses to do the same. With Banerjee, Duflo also wrote the new book Good Economics for Hard Times.

• Subscribe On:

Apple

Spotify

RSS

Latest in this series

All episodes

This article is about ECONOMICS

** Follow this topic

** Following

Related Topics:

• Emerging markets

• Government policy and regulation

Original source