Poor Economics: Rethinking the Way to Fight Global Poverty

Tuesday, April 26, 2011
12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EDT
Location: Rafik B. Hariri Building Room 490 Map

Why would a man in Morocco who doesn’t have enough to eat buy a television? Why is it so hard for children in poor areas to learn even when they attend school? Why do the poorest people in the Indian state of Maharashtra spend 7 percent of their food budget on sugar? This lecture by Esther Duflo discussed some of the most surprising facets of poverty, such as why the poor need to borrow in order to save, why they miss out on free life-saving immunizations but pay for drugs that they do not need, why they start many businesses but do not grow any of them, and many other puzzling facts about living with less than 99 cents a day. The lecture took place the same day Duflo's book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011, with Abhijit V. Banerjee) was released.

This event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Center for Social Justice, ODE Economics Honor Society, Economics Department, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Mortara Center for International Studies, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, and the GU Lecture Fund.

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Poor Economics: Rethinking the Way to Fight Global Poverty

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About Esther Duflo

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research network specializing in randomized evaluations of social programs. Duflo's research focuses on the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She is the author of Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011, with Abhijit V. Banerjee) and a member of the President’s Global Development Council. She has been awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2015), the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize (2014), and the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), among others. Duflo has degrees in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris and a Ph.D. from MIT.

Esther Duflo's Profile