Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty

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Published 2010-05-04

www.ted.com/ Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt -- by testing solutions with randomized trials.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

All Comments (21)

@bhaswatmandal8751 4 years ago

And she won 2019 Nobel for working on global proverty
@shashwatasamanta7358 4 years ago

And that is the TED Talk before she won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2019. That passion and determination in her voice is a mark of things to come.
@mohitjain3496 4 years ago

Congratulations on winning 2019 Nobel prize in Economics.
@papaipanda7694 4 years ago

Congrats ma'am to be a Noble laurete of Economics. Respect from India 🇮🇳
@SuperSPINtoWIN 10 years ago

Thank you Esther Duflo for your amazing book "Poor Economics"! You do an incredible important work! THIS really matters and makes me confident that there are effective ways to fight poverty! Keep it up!
@akash_goel 4 years ago

"You cannot helicopter people out of poverty." - Esther Duflo, 2010
@dino0228 4 years ago

So admire this kind of economics- scientifically tested with humanity. My only reservation is that while we wonder how to spend a million dollars, someone in a village in Africa loses a child because they had the misfortune living in a village that was randomly selected for no intervention. One has to wonder how much patience the developed world would have for being a guinea pig with such high stakes. It may be necessary, but there may be ways to reduce the misery in testing. We do it in medicine all the time. I stared at the little white dots with a heavy heart. Just a thought.
@Hussein_Nur 4 years ago

I like her accent. Its stereo typically strong, like someone is trying to offend a french person. She is a great woman, though. Lovely couple she and Abhijit.
@beachcomber2008 14 years ago

Admirable and very positive.
@kaushikdas47 4 years ago

Congratulations, madam ! 👍🏻 This is a topic I have always thought about since childhood, as it has no singular, definitive cure, but rather a collective effort and like you said, what works somewhere might not work elsewhere. But I do hope to see a poverty free World some day.
@trailblazer3889 4 years ago

Truly enlightening. She deserve that Nobel
@krish8873 4 years ago

U did amazing ma'am.. hats off👏👏👏
@arvind1724 4 years ago

THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, Esther :)
@aaronwimberleymbamsf5776 3 years ago

Duflo & Banerjee are truly inspirational in the work that they do. Thank you for this & thank you for your leadership.
@riddhimanmedhi99 4 years ago

Excellent research! Absolutely phenomenal! One of the most well deserved Nobel awards ever. Hope more and more people take up this experimental approach to shape better policy.
@AgrajRMarak 4 years ago

Abhijit Banerjee,Esther Duflo both of them deserve to get Nobel prize.If i correlate my present place is posting ,where poverty is prevalent ,lots of malarial cases,low routine immunization rate ,free school ,free LLIN distribution is challenging.Govt is giving free antimalarials,LLIN and free vaccines still less in acceptance rate by the people.This experiments really opened our eyes.You people deserve it.
@ashleylovesdaddy 14 years ago

She's a pleasure to listen to.
@views-qw9tf 4 years ago

Your voice is heavenly, In love with the speech.
@tomoomen3952 4 years ago

She is amazing, what a wonderful contribution she is making to the world!
@Fahab747 11 years ago

Brilliant ! A true scientific approach to a question plagued with judgmental ideologies. The US gvt made a great decision in integrating her !