Conversations with Tyler18 Dec 2019

Esther Duflo on Management, Growth, and Research in Action

Want to support future conversations? Visit conversationswithtyler.com/donate.

Esther Duflo's advice to students? Spend time in the field. "It's only through this exposure that you can learn how wrong most of your intuitions are and preconceptions are," she explains. For Duflo, it was time spent in the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse. While there she saw how Jeff Sachs used the tools of economics to advise policymakers on matters of crucial importance. To her it seemed like the best job in the world—and she began to pursue it in earnest. Now it is she who is advising governments on how best to reduce poverty, having co-founded one of the leading policy research centers in the world. That work, together with that of frequent collaborators Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, has now been honored with the Nobel Prize.

She joined Tyler to discuss that work, including how coaching increases the effectiveness of cash transfers, why she cautions against falling in love with growth rates, what France gets right about child-rearing, the management philosophy behind her success building J-PAL, how she briefly became the face of an anti-Soviet revolution, the under-looked reasons behind the decline of geographic mobility in the United States, what rock climbing can teach us about being a good empirical economist, her daily musical move from Bach to Bob Dylan, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded November 12th, 2019

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(288)

Any Austin on the Hermeneutics of Video Games

Any Austin has carved a unique niche for himself on YouTube: analyzing seemingly mundane or otherwise overlooked details in video games with the seriousness of an art critic examining Renaissance scul...

11 Juni 20251h 5min

John Arnold on Trading, Energy, and Evidence-Based Philanthropy

John Arnold built his fortune in energy trading by surrounding himself with smart people, maintaining emotional detachment, sensing market imbalances through first-principles analysis, and focusing wi...

4 Juni 20251h 4min

Theodore Schwartz on Neurosurgery, Consciousness, and Brain-Computer Interfaces

Get tickets to the CWT live show at 92NY with David Brooks! Theodore Schwartz stands at the pinnacle of neurosurgical expertise. With over 500 published articles, 200 pieces of commentary, and 5 paten...

21 Maj 202557min

Jack Clark on AI's Uneven Impact

Few understand both the promise and limitations of artificial general intelligence better than Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic. With a background in journalism and the humanities that sets him apa...

7 Maj 20251h 2min

Kenneth Rogoff on Monetary Moves, Fiscal Gambits, and Classical Chess

Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff approaches global finance with the same strategic foresight that made him a chess grandmaster. Author of the new book Our Dollar, Your Problem, Rogoff doesn't sugarcoa...

30 Apr 20251h

Chris Dixon on Blockchains, AI, and the Future of the Internet

Chris Dixon believes we're at a pivotal inflection point in the internet's evolution. As a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of Read Write Own, Chris believes the current internet, dom...

23 Apr 20251h 2min

Ian Leslie on McCartney, Lennon, and the Greatest Creative Partnership of All Time

It's Beatles day! In this deep dive into one of music's most legendary partnerships, Ian Leslie and Tyler unpack the complex relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Leslie, whose book Joh...

16 Apr 202559min

Jennifer Pahlka on Reforming Government

Jennifer Pahlka believes America's bureaucratic dysfunction is deeply rooted in outdated processes and misaligned incentives. As the founder of Code for America and co-founder of the United States Dig...

9 Apr 202554min