Esther Duflo: Poverty is not that simple

$2 (about €1.85) a day is enough to cover all basic necessities? This is the World Bank's yardstick for defining extreme poverty, already even factoring in differences in purchasing power between different countries around the world. 

Esther Duflo, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2019 for her work on ways to combat extreme poverty, offers some thoughts on how we can curb inequality. The author advocates «practical solutions», arguing that «it's much easier to think about the effect of something than its cause», and reveals how small measures can have a big impact. 

The economist advocates approaching problems with a «plumber's mentality». By adopting this strategy, she shows how important it is to experiment with various solutions until you find a solution.

In this interview, the Nobel laureate explains how small changes in access to health and education have long-term implications for the lives of the poorest people. Using deworming children in Kenya as an example, she shows how this measure has not only led to improvements in health, but has also helped reduce school absenteeism, providing pupils with better quality education.

Esther Duflo also highlights immigrants’ economic contributions, stressing that the workforce and youth immigrants provide, benefit rather than hinder economic development.

In the fight against poverty, climate change is fueling new inequalities: the richest countries are the biggest polluters, but it is the poorest who are suffering the consequences of the climate crisis the most. In light of this, Duflo calls for a global solution to this problem.