Name: Social experiments to fight poverty
Uploaded: 2010-05-03T09:19:00Z
Duration: 16 min 30 s
Description: 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.

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.

Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty

Social experiments to fight poverty

Innovative strategies, like providing lentils for immunizations or free bed nets, dramatically increase aid effectiveness.

Trials in Udaipur show incentivizing immunization with lentils can sextuple rates, revealing keys to boosting health interventions.

Randomized experiments uncover that free bed nets increase usage without reducing future purchases, debunking handout dependency myths.