Curated & Moderated by:
Anna-Kynthia Bousdoukou

Esther Duflo

Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)

In her research, Esther Duflo seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment, and governance. Professor Duflo has received numerous honors including the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (with co-Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer). With Abhijit Banerjee, she wrote the critically acclaimed books “Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty” and “Good Economics for Hard Times”.

The…mistake is that we are focusing too much on economic growth. That should not be an end, that should be a means. The end would be welfare in developing countries. Simple things, like being alive, not dying in infancy or in childbirth, being able to go to school…