MIT Economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee have a new book called Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. We'll be reviewing the book here on our blog in the near future. In the meantime we thought a look back at an interview Duflo and Banerjee conducted in 2008 with our friends Tim Ogden and Laura Starita at Philanthropy Action on their ideas of what poverty interventions they view as effective and where donors can make a true impact.
And for those eager to dig deeper into the nitty gritty of using rigorous evaluation to assess poverty interventions, here is a link to Duflo and Banerjee's original groundbreaking study, The Miracle of Microfinance?. Written with Rachel Glennerster and Cynthia Kinnan, the paper examines the promise of microfinance to alleviate poverty and continues to be a touchstone for practitioners, donors, and regulators today.
