Esther Duflo podcast

This is from Economics in Ten podcast, season four, episode five. Duflo (with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer) won the 2019 Nobel Prize for pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials to test economic interventions aimed at reducing poverty. The episode covers what RCTs are, why they represent a methodological step forward, and what they have told us about which poverty interventions actually work. It’s a good methodological episode as well as a good development economics episode, and Duflo’s argument that tackling poverty requires evidence-based policy rather than ideology is a strong one. She also became only the second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Accessible and the RCT methodology is explained clearly: good for development economics and as a discussion of how economists actually test their ideas.  Listen here