Esther Duflo

"Randomization is not cold calculation, it's a way to ensure fairness in learning what helps."

"What works in one place might not work in another, and that's important to understand."

"Behavioral economics teaches us that people are not always rational, and that's okay."

"The measure of development is not GDP, but how human lives actually improve."

"Microfinance is not a magic bullet, but it can be one tool among many."

"We must distinguish between what makes sense in theory and what works in practice."

"The poor often have better financial discipline than the wealthy; we can learn from them."

"Cost-effectiveness matters in development because resources are limited and lives are many."

"Corruption is not a cultural trait, it's a rational response to broken incentives."

"Technology alone will not solve poverty without addressing systems and incentives."

"We should celebrate small wins while working toward bigger transformations."

"The narrative around poverty often reveals more about the narrator than the reality."

"Experimentation is not arrogance, it's humility about what we don't know."

"The poor spend money on the things that matter most to them, just like we do."

"Development is not about making poor people like rich people, it's about expanding choices."

"We must measure impact on the things that actually matter to people's lives."

"Patience with evidence beats haste with ideology every time."

"The poorest are often the most rational about their limited resources."

"Focusing on the poorest means being precise about who we help and how."

"We learn more by failing in controlled ways than by succeeding by accident."

"The narrative about poverty can be as damaging as poverty itself."

"Development requires both compassion and evidence, not one or the other."

"Small-scale experiments can reveal truths that large surveys miss."

"The challenge is not generating ideas, it's testing which ones actually work."

"What seems obvious to us might be invisible to those living the problem daily."

"We should trust people to know what is good for them more than we trust our intuitions."

"Effective development respects the intelligence and agency of those it serves."

"Real change comes from understanding constraints, not ignoring them."

"The best policies are those informed by conversations with those affected by them."

"We must be willing to abandon our pet theories when evidence contradicts them."