14 Quotes by Esther Duflo

Awareness of our problems thus does not necessarily mean that they get solved. I t may just mean that we are able to perfectly anticipate where we will fall.

In technology, we spend so much time experimenting, fine-tuning, getting the absolute cheapest way to do something – so why aren’t we doing that with social policy?

And there is a lot of idiosyncrasy. But there are also regularities and phenomena. And what the data is going to be able to do – if there’s enough of it – is uncover, in the mess and the noise of the world, some lines of music that actually have harmony. It’s there, somewhere.

The logic is that when you provide schools or any social service to people, they have no choice. They have to take what you give them, because they don't have the money to pay for schools themselves; that's why you provide schools in the first place.

I don't go to the beach. There is no value in going to the beach. If I did go I would probably read economics books.

Giving more to women will, to some extent, come at the expense of men. People sometimes try to sweep that under the rug by saying you will create so much additional resources that everyone will be better off. I don't think that's true.

The poor get bored the same as the rest of us. Their happiness might be as important to them as their health.

In a way, it has been an advantage for me to be a woman because there is always some academic committee that needs you to fill a quota!

The differences in income between the poor world and the rich world are so great that people have to be interested.