KhizooologyPoor Economics
Understand the choices before prescribing the solution.
Big Idea
Banerjee and Duflo argue that reducing poverty requires close attention to daily constraints and evidence about specific interventions, not only sweeping claims.
Start With Daily Life
Decisions about health, schooling, work and savings happen under constraints outsiders can easily miss.
Ask Smaller Questions
A concrete question can be tested more usefully than a broad argument about whether all aid works.
Compare What Happens
Randomized evaluations compare groups to learn whether a particular intervention changes an outcome.
Design Affects Participation
Information, convenience and incentives can alter whether a useful service is actually used.
No Single Cure
Microcredit or access to schooling is not automatically a complete answer to poverty.
Evidence Has a Setting
A local result needs judgment before use elsewhere; experiments do not settle every structural or political question.
Khizooo Take
Define the specific barrier and outcome before deciding that a well-intended program must work.
Remember
A useful policy needs evidence from the lives it affects.