[APPLAUSE]
That was so wonderful.
So welcome to MIT, everyone.
And thank you to all who are
with us this morning in person
or participating remotely
by the phone bridge
or on the live webcast.
We'll begin with a few
introductory remarks
from MIT president
L. Rafael Reif.
The president will
then introduce
Professors Esther Duflo and
Professor Abhijit Banerjee.
They'll speak, after which we'll
take questions from the room
and from our journalists
participating remotely.
We'll provide a few additional
instructions at that point.
Thank you so much.
President Reif and
Esther and Abhijit.
Thank you, Kimberly.
And welcome everyone.
Good, sunny, beautiful
morning today.
I'm delighted to
tell you officially
what you already know.
This morning, the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences
announced that MIT's
Abhijit Banerjee and Esther
Duflo, along with
their colleague
Professor Michael
Kremer of Harvard,
have been awarded the
2019's Sveriges Riksbank
Prize in Economic Sciences,
in memory of Alfred Nobel.
As the Academy noted
in bestowing the honor,
this year's laureates
have considerably
improved our ability to
fight global poverty.
In just two decades their
experiment-based approach
has transformed
development economics,
which is now a flourishing
field of research.
In fact, in an interview
this morning, Professor Duflo
acknowledged what she described
as a movement of hundreds
of researchers who work
to advance solutions
in global poverty.
The Ford International Professor
of Economics Professor Banerjee
joined the MIT faculty in 1993.
The Abdul Latif
Jameel a Professor
of Poverty Alleviation and
Development Economics Professor
Duflo joined the MIT
faculty six years later.
In 2003, they teamed
up to co-found
the Abdul Latif Jameel
Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL,
a global network of
anti-poverty researchers.
J-PAL studies the impact
of local interventions
on social problems and
extends successful efforts
more broadly.
The essence of their
work is to make sure
that the global
fight against poverty
is based on scientific
evidence, so that policymakers
have a systematic way to
understand which interventions
work, which do not, and why.
By providing an
experimental basis
for development economics,
Professor Banerjee and Duflo
have reimagined their field
and profoundly changed
how governments and
agencies around the world
intervene to help
people in poverty.
In doing so, they
provide a proud reminder
of MIT's commitment
to bring knowledge
to bear on the world's
great challenges.
The institute's
mission calls on us
to use our distinctive grounding
in science and technology
to make the world a better
place in service to humanity.
That is the definition of J-PAL.
Professors Banerjee
and Duflo are
the sixth and
seventh individuals
to win the Nobel Prize
in Economic Sciences
while serving on MIT's faculty.
Will this achievement, they
build on the remarkable legacy
of Professors Paul Samuelson,
Franco Modigliani, Robert
Solow, Peter Diamond,
and Bengt Holmstrom.
MIT economics is known
for its combination
of superb economic
talent in a commitment
to making a better world.
And Abhijit and Esther stand
as a wonderful example of both.
We're deeply proud of our
newest Nobel laureates
and the entire
economics department.
And on that note, please join me
in welcoming Professors Abhijit
Banerjee and Esther Duflo.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
It feels a bit like I walked
onto the set of a wrong movie.
[LAUGHTER]
I guess the one thing I
wanted to start by saying
is that I think--
it's wonderful to
get this prize,
but it's particularly
wonderful, I think,
because it's a
prize not, I think,
for us, but also for
the entire movement.
I think this is a
movement that we happen
to be at the beginning of--
I think mostly luck.
And if it is going to
be a worldwide movement,
there are about
400 professors who
are in one form or the other
associated with J-PAL's work.
And they all do randomized
controlled trials
on issues as diverse as US
schools in the Appalachia,
to governance
problems in Indonesia,
and getting children
immunized in India,
giving children under bed
nets in sub-Saharan Africa.
So this is a movement
that, in some ways,
we are kind of the
beneficiaries of.
Often in the press people say,
J-PAL's research has showed.
We take great pride in it.
We had nothing to do
with the research.
We didn't raise
any money for it.
It just happened, and we
got the credit for it.
It's great.
[LAUGHTER]
We're in a frontier
economy at this point.
But I think it's still going to
be wonderful for the movement
that this prize was given.
Because I think it's going
to make it a little easier
to penetrate the many doors
that are half open to us
or not quite open
to us, and hopefully
bring the message of
policy based on evidence
and hard thinking to many
other places as well.
The world today is full of
somewhat depressing news,
especially in the international
geopolitical stage.
And in the middle of
this depressing news,
the one hopeful
thing there is is
that the fate of
the world's poor
has really tremendously improved
over the last three decades.
People don't tend
to realize that.
People in the USA usually
are persuaded that poverty
keeps increasing, for example.
But the truth is that over
the last three decades,
the two groups that did
relatively well in the world's
economy are the ultra
rich and the ultra poor.
Why are the ultra
poor doing better?
In part, because some
economies are growing fast.
In part, also because--
in particular, India and China.
But in part, also
because the policies that
aim to help the poor cope
with the issues that they face
have improved.
Infant mortality has been
cut in half since 1990.
Maternal mortality by
even more than that.
And that has
happened in countries
that are not
particularly wealthy
and even in countries that
have not becoming richer.
Even in the poorest
countries, there
have been progress on
these important issues.
Almost all of the children
go to school, for example.
If policy does improve,
largely it's not because of us,
to be honest.
But I think that entire movement
that Abhijit talked about
has played a small role in
it, in that it has, I think,
raised the possibility
and the hope
that one could be a little
bit more rigorous about what
policies and what type of
things can really help the poor.
That goes in two ways.
It goes in designing
the policies not based
on your intuition or
whatever it happens
to be the flavor of the
month, but based on a better
understanding of how the
poor live, why they make
the choices they make, what are
the specific traps that hold
them back, and
what lever to push
that could unlock these traps.
But also, one grows
also in the way
that accepting the possibility
that maybe you didn't get it
right exactly the first
time, and that innovating,
experimenting is useful.
That is something
that, of course,
the two of us-- the three
of us, with Michael Kremer--
could never have achieved.
But that is something
that this entire movement
of going at it with a lot of
persistence and lot of details
in the big and in the small--
and small, small project,
and giant projects--
progressively has achieved.
And I hope now with J-PAL North
America, and J-PAL Europe,
and J-PAL LAC is that some
of this rigor that we tried
to develop in the poor
countries moves back up north,
and we also improve our
understanding of what
our people's really trouble--
our respect for them
and our dignity.
And therefore, a better,
more imaginative solution
to solve these issues.
Abhijit rightly put this
in the broader context
of the big movement that is
changing development economics,
and is much beyond us.
But I want to bring it back
a little bit to the more
local environment of MIT.
As you know, I'm a MIT
product through and through.
Came to do my PhD here.
Was hired as an assistant
professor against all norms.
[LAUGHTER]
Never left.
When I made this
choice, many wise people
told me that it was an
horrible career move
and was probably
leading to perdition.
I said, I understand
that it's not
good to stay in your
own institution.
But I think this is here that
I have the right environment
to pursue what I want to pursue.
I've not been regretting
this choice [LAUGHTER]
for any number of reasons.
And so I want to thank,
first of all, the department,
from my advisor--
it's a bit awkward,
because it's one of them.
[LAUGHTER]
But Josh Angrist, who is the
other one, and Michael Kremer--
who I guess makes
it doubly awkward.
[LAUGHTER]
And also the entire
faculty who taught me,
and all of the students
who are with me.
And I think together-- so this
is a part that Abhijit enjoyed
as a student, since he had
the misfortune of being
down the road.
[LAUGHTER]
But we also want to
thank the department
for being a wonderful
place to work and to talk
about economics.
And maybe in particular
Bengt Holmstrom,
who I think saw, much before
us, the possibility of the idea
we had.
The first time we thought
about forming something,
he was the chair
of the department.
And he told us, we
both vividly remember,
you have a product that is
going to make a big difference.
I was like, whenever.
And sure, can you get us a bit
of money so we hire someone?
[LAUGHTER]
And then the second
very important person
in development of J-PAL and
we want to acknowledge here
is Susan Hockfield, who when
she came as president of MIT
just before Rafael, met us.
In fact, I think just before
she became president, met us.
And we explained what
we were working on.
And she's like, oh, you're
bringing the method of science
to social science.
This is so refreshing.
I'm going to help you.
And she was good to her word.
And she helped us in many
ways, nurturing, always
ready to talk, and
also, quite frankly,
putting us in front
of possible donors.
And in that, we met, I
think, Mohammed Jameel,
who is the third person that
we really want to acknowledge.
In the works of J-PAL, Mohammed
Jameel, who saw in us--
maybe a little bit like Bengt
and maybe for the same reason
that he has business acumen
that none of us really had,
who saw in us and in our
project something that
could make a
difference and decided
to risk his reputation
and his money behind that.
This would not have happened
without the ecosystem.
This would not have
happened, of course,
without his vision and his
commitment for the world's
poor, which was very apparent
then and still apparent today.
This is the type of
outstanding people
that you want to have
associated with a university.
And finally, I think on
behalf of both of us,
we want to thank
all the students,
the ones who have been our
students forever and who are--
some of them are still
in the room today.
Some of them are gone
in the wide world,
who have formed great big
families and community.
And all of the students who are
here who are not our student
but make our days exciting every
single morning that we wake up
and come here.
And all of the
staff of J-PAL, here
and worldwide, all
maybe hundreds of them.
And in particular, the
leadership and vision
of Rachel Glennerster, the first
executive director of J-PAL,
and Iqbal Dhaliwal, who
succeeded her when she went
on bigger and better things.
Thank you very much for coming
here on a Monday of holidays.
We deeply appreciate it.
[APPLAUSE]
So moving.
So moving.
Thank you so much for
those beautiful remarks.
So in addition to those
in this room, like I said,
there are many more
participating remotely,
by the phone bridge and
by the webcast today.
So what we're going to do just
for the journalists in the room
is we're going to alternate
between the room, the phone
bridge, and the webcast.
And I have some of the
webcast cards in front of me.
So we're going to try
to accommodate as many
of your questions
as we can today.
So we can bring you back up.
First question from the room.
What decided you to pursue
this particular method?
At which point did you think
this was a worthwhile method
to pursue?
I think a combination of--
actually, I think by
the time I understood
what it takes to get answers
to empirical questions right,
I thought the method--
and most of that
sounded hokey to me.
And most of the work that
was seen as an established
truth in 1990--
including my own
work, some of it--
I thought was a
little bit hokey.
And that made it
much more attractive
to look for a method
that would give me
a little more confidence
in what we were doing.
And I think that came out
of mostly frustration,
often with myself.
As I said, I'm a
student of Josh Angrist.
And the way that
I've been taught
to learn about the
world is, how can you
get as close as possible to a
randomized controlled trial?
So as soon as I add a little bit
more flexibility, and freedom,
and time, I was
like, why do I need
to be close to a randomized
controlled trial?
Why can't we just do it?
[LAUGHTER]
Any more questions from the
room before we go to the bridge?
Oh, yes.
Right over there.
What is your real
belief for education?
Our real one or our fake one?
[LAUGHTER]
Our real belief for
education is as follows.
Every kid can learn.
But they cannot learn if they
are taught something that is
so far away from what they
already know that there is no
way they can catch up.
Unfortunately,
there are millions
and millions and
millions of children
who are in school, whose parents
are very excited about school,
who themselves are very
excited about school--
and get completely discouraged
within days or within weeks,
because they don't
understand what's going on.
Because they have no
reason to understand.
Because they are
taught something
that is way too
advanced for them.
And they are being made to
understand that they are stupid
and they will never succeed.
We spend a lot of our career
and work on the full pattern
that we work with to
try and change that.
That's a great question.
Thank you.
So we're going to
very quickly-- they're
going to take a question
from the phone bridge.
And they're going to have
to pipe the audio explaining
the instructions to the room.
So we're going to
do that right now.
My apologies.
Thank you.
For the audio participants,
it is *1 to ask a question.
Do we have our first question?
Oh, OK.
Can you just
describe in detail--
and sorry to go into
this-- we'd love
to know more about that moment
when you got the phone call.
[LAUGHTER]
You were more awake than I was.
[LAUGHTER]
A lot more awake.
Can I be transparent?
[LAUGHTER]
So my phone rang.
And I picked it up.
And it says, it's an
important call from Sweden.
And I thought to myself,
well, now that you woke me up,
just go ahead.
[LAUGHTER]
And then someone, a
very serious person,
told us-- they told
me that, you've
been awarded the full
name of the prize
that I don't yet know.
[LAUGHTER]
I'll work on it.
And I said, who?
Me?
And he said that this is
with Professor Banerjee
and Professor Kremer.
And I said, oh, you
want to talk to him?
[LAUGHTER]
And so then they talked to him.
And then they went
back to us and said,
would you be ready for a
press conference in an hour?
We should make a cup of coffee.
And I really said, I'm
going to go back to bed.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I woke up.
I got up.
I got showered, et cetera.
And then he went back to bed.
I took the press conference.
Mind you, they had said
they wanted just one of us.
So that was fair enough.
And then we started the day.
Even said they wanted you,
because they wanted a woman,
specifically.
And I didn't qualify.
[LAUGHTER]
So I actually have a
question from the internet.
But I'm going to
let you read it.
They sent it in French.
They'd like you to answer in
French, if you wouldn't mind.
Should I translate?
Or should I read it in
French and answer in French?
You should answer in French.
But for the room, you
could do it in English.
So the question's, what does
this prize signify for you?
[SPEAKING FRENCH] Number one.
And number two, is it a
proof that your approach
is the right one?
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And we have one from the bridge.
Is someone there?
Hi, can I go ahead?
Yes.
Great.
Congratulations, professors.
Could you please
summarize for us
what your work means for
governments and institutions
who are in a place where they
can intervene in a material way
for improving outcomes
among the poor?
There's always a little bit
of hoping for what we do.
So it's not that--
I mean, governments are free
to not use our evidence.
But to be honest, I think our
experience over the last 20
years has been when you--
20 years ago, you go and
tell somebody in government,
we're going to do a
randomized controlled trial.
And they'd look at
you like you had just
escaped from some mental
health institution.
Now they look at you and say
that, OK, is that expensive?
Has anybody else done it?
Can you give me an example
of somebody powerful
who has endorsed it?
But they ask the right
kinds of questions.
And we get to the second
base, not always all the way.
But at least there is
some sense in which
they're open to the idea
that evidence is valuable,
that we know something,
and that might actually
be useful to them.
Is there another
one in the room?
Oh, yes.
You've already probably answered
this in a different way.
But I was just wondering,
just for the layman who
may have no idea what you've
been doing or familiarity
with your work, could
you just sort of explain
in layman's terms what you do?
Yeah, let me maybe give you an
example, a concrete example.
Maybe that's the easiest.
So we run what's called
randomized controlled trials.
And the objective of
randomized controlled trial
is to run an experiment
to see whether something
affects something else
the way you expect
or in a different way.
So I'll give you an example.
Several years ago we
were interested in trying
to understand why people do
not immunize their children
and what could be done about it.
And we spent a lot
of time in India
in very remote
places in Rajasthan,
where immunization rates
were very, very low,
of the order of less than
5% full immunization rate.
The prevailing view
at the time was
that the main problem was that
immunization services were not
reliably available.
And that's why people wouldn't
get their immunization.
And it's true that immunization
service are not reliably
available.
Sometimes you walk
for a long time
to go to a public health place.
And then you arrive
there, and it's shut.
And you have to come back.
You've lost a day.
No immunization.
That's kind of frustrating.
And then people
don't do it again.
But because we spend a
lot of time in this place,
and we interviewed
people, we realized
that another issue is
that people are always
busy with other things.
And with immunization, if
you don't do it this month,
you can always do it next month.
It's really not
ever an emergency.
So it's never really on top of
the list for people to do it.
And the small cost that it means
to go there and get it done
might be too high, even
if it's a very small cost.
So we thought, OK, let's try
and test these two ideas.
So we worked with a wonderful
NGO called Seva Mandir.
And they, in turn, teamed
up with the government
and told the
government, we are going
to replace you for an area.
And we are going to provide
golden plate immunization
services, very reliable
services every month,
available at people's
doorstep in villages.
And then on top of that--
so what they did is that
they picked 120 villages,
randomly-- that is, literally
with a random number generator,
the modern equivalent of a dice.
Picked half of them, and
put in place those services
in half of those.
And then, out of those
60, again randomly
picked 30, where
they provided people
with this very small
incentive to show up
to the immunization camp.
It was a kilo of lentils
per shot and a set of plates
when you finish.
So they did that.
They did that for a year.
And what we did is that we
collected data on immunization
status before and after.
And because the places
were randomly selected,
there is nothing different about
them except the intervention.
Any difference that we find
can be confidently attributed
to the program.
So what we found is that in
the status quo villages where
nothing particular was
done, immunization rates
by the end of the
experiment were 5%.
In the places where they
had done the camps but not
the small incentive
immunization rate
has climbed to
12%, which is good.
It's more than doubling.
But in places where
they had, indeed,
on top of that, put
the small incentive,
immunization rates were 37%.
So that gave us the
kind of indication
that this was important.
And from there, we
go in two directions.
In the policy direction,
we pointed out
that it's actually
cheaper to give incentive
than not to give incentive.
Because the nurse has to
be in the village anyways.
And if she immunized more
kids, it's cheaper per shot.
So it's a good policy to pursue.
On the intellectual
side, it sort of got
us to think about why is it that
a small incentive can persuade
people, when you would think
that it shouldn't really
be pertinent, and got
us to think more about
how people make decisions.
Is it that-- what are they
understanding of the health
care system?
What are they understanding
of the future and the present
and things like that?
Which has kind of
spawned a whole agenda
on understanding this
type of behavior.
So that's an example,
I should clarify.
Now, multiply that
by 1,000, and you
have the J-PAL type of work.
Anyone from the bridge?
Any in the room?
Oh, you again.
It's Tom again, yeah.
Where do you want to
take your work now?
I mean, to be honest, I
think we hope that we'll
get to do more of the same.
I think we are actually
quite excited about what
we are doing.
This was not work that
we did a long time ago.
We're excited about
what we're doing now.
And it's fun.
We are learning new things.
I'm really excited to
look at the results
from our latest intervention.
So I think what I
hope this will do
is just open more opportunities
to do more inventive things.
But I don't expect to do
something entirely different.
I think I'm content
with what I'm
doing, enjoying it very much.
I think maybe one thing
that we have started to do--
not just us, but them over
here and various people
in the network as well--
is working with
governments and working
at scale with governments
to help them evaluate--
both new approaches, but
also better ways to do things
that they want to do anyways.
So this is our larger project.
For example, I gave
you the example
of the immunization project,
which was in 120 villages.
We are currently analyzing
an immunization project
in the state of Ariana
that has 2,000 villages,
and where the results
that we are finding
will lead to statewide scale-up
of whatever works the best.
So that's kind of one place
in which we are taking it,
which is working directly with
government on large scales.
And the other place-- and I
think that's, really, again,
not just us, but
the entire network--
is we are constantly
blown away, literally,
by how imaginative
people have become
in terms of how they can design
projects which not only help
but see what works and what
doesn't work, but help us
understand much better
how people behave,
or how governments behave,
or how politicians behave,
and with wonderfully
imaginative designs.
And we want to do our
best to be part of that,
to the extent we can, or
support it to the extent we can.
So this question comes from
Julia Hood of Business Insider
for you, Professor Duflo.
She asks, you are
the second woman
to receive the Nobel
Prize in economics.
What is your hope
for the profession
in terms of inclusion?
There are not enough women
in the economic profession,
at all levels.
There are not enough
undergraduates who
choose to take economics.
There are not enough graduate
students who continue.
There are not enough
assistant professors.
There are not enough
tenured faculty.
So the reasons why there
are so few women who
get the Nobel Prize
or other prizes
is not because the people who
give prizes are discriminating
against women.
It's because the entire
funnel is just not big enough.
And that's not true just
for women, I should say.
It's true also for minorities.
There are not enough
African-American
in the economic profession, by
any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, it makes woman
look positively numerous.
And that has to change.
But I think the reason
it's the case is because--
it's two-- maybe I'm wrong.
That's my understanding
of the reasons.
One is the climate is a little
bit tough and aggressive.
And it doesn't
work for everybody.
And in particular, it's less
likely to work for women
than for others.
This is something
that the profession is
starting to reckon with,
and that's wonderful.
And I think we'll get
to the bottom of that.
It will take some time.
But I think people are much
more aware that it is an issue.
I was not aware it was an
issue myself, because I
don't mind aggressive.
It doesn't trouble me.
But it troubled a
lot of other people.
And that's unfortunate.
And it should not be.
And there's no reason to
be aggressive anyways.
The second reason, I
think, is because I
think many women do not
think that economics
is all that interesting.
Because the vision
that economics is is,
oh, it's something
maybe having to do
with finance, or big,
macro policy, or whatnot.
And it has very little
to do with the problem
that I care about,
many women care about.
The truth is that's not true.
In fact, a lot of
economics is about--
the type of work
we do, obviously.
But similar work in public
finance, and labor economics,
et cetera, on the US,
on issues that are
important-- education, health.
But people don't know that.
It doesn't really percolate.
And we should also
remember that there are not
many Nobel prizes that
has gone to people who
mainly work on social problems.
And so being a woman
working on social issues,
I hope that it can also be
kind of a role model for others
to think, look, actually, it's
pretty interesting, this field.
And it's much more
varied than you think.
I just want to
add one piece of--
just take pride in
one thing, which
is that in our specific,
little corner of economics,
the field of
development economics
has many more women than almost
any other part of economics.
And for example, we
have a seminar series
that Harvard and
MIT jointly run.
This semester, it
turns out that--
I rashly said that all
those speakers are women.
And this was not
because of any design.
It was simply because
these were the best people.
And they were invited
to come give talks.
Turned out, I was
slightly wrong.
There were actually two men.
So I think organically,
it is a field where--
consistent with maybe
what Esther said,
which is that maybe
some parts of economics
are not so interesting to women.
We don't have anything like
a comparable deficit, which
I really do want to
take some pride in.
Any more questions in the room?
All right, we have just a lot
of cards from the internet.
Letitia Hernandez with El
Financiero in Mexico, she asks,
the United Nations
warns that the pace
of the fight against
poverty has fallen,
especially in Latin America.
What policies should
governments prioritize
to have effective results
in reducing poverty?
Health, food, education?
In some ways, I
think one of the ways
in which we distinguish
ourselves is by not answering
those questions.
[LAUGHTER]
I think we'd like to answer
these questions after we
do the homework.
Having one answer for
all of Latin America
based on never
having really studied
Latin America, that
would be irresponsible.
I don't think--
I think that would
be bad advertisement
for our particular
style of work.
So that's to say,
I won't answer it.
[LAUGHTER]
OK, so we have another
one, which maybe
will be a will not answer.
But we'll ask.
So NWA team Bengali
News asks, what
is your opinion on the state
of the economy in India?
What's in store for the future?
And they ask if you
could answer in Bengali.
He has an opinion about this.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
That's a statement not about
what will work in the future,
but about what's going on now.
That I am entitled to have
an opinion about, I feel.
[LAUGHTER]
The economy is doing
very badly, in my view.
One of the numbers
that just came out
is the national sample
survey, which comes out
every 1 and 1/2 years or so.
And it gives you the
average consumption
in urban and rural
areas in India.
And the fact that
we see in that is
that between 2014-15 and
2017-18 that number has slightly
gone down.
And that's the first
time such a thing
has happened in many, many,
many, many, many years.
So that's a very
glaring warning sign.
There's enormous fight
going on in India
about which data is right.
And the government
has a particular view
of all data that's
inconvenient to it is wrong.
But nonetheless, I think
that this is something
that I think even the government
is increasingly recognizing,
that there is a problem.
So the economy is
slowing very, very fast.
How fast, we don't know, because
there's dispute over data.
But I think fast.
He did ask if you could
do some of it in Bengali?
No?
Sure.
OK.
[SPEAKING BENGALI] What
can we do about this?
OK.
Let me do-- I'll say the
whole thing in Bengali
and then translate.
[SPEAKING BENGALI]
So I don't know
exactly what to do.
The government has
a large deficit.
But right now, it's
sort of at least
aiming to please
everybody by pretending
to hold to some budgetary
targets and monetary targets.
And my view is that this is--
the economy going
into a tailspin
is the time when you
don't worry so much
about monetary stability.
And you worry a little
bit more about demand.
I think demand is a huge problem
right now in the economy.
Thank you.
Julia Hood with Business
Insider has a follow up.
How does political upheaval,
domestically and globally,
impact your work, either
at the research level
or in its practical
applications?
Does the private sector step in?
There are a few
questions in that.
She's referring to the US?
Political upheavals.
Political upheaval,
domestic or global.
Everywhere.
I don't think there is any
direct impact on our work,
in the sense that we
can mostly continue
doing what we are doing.
But there is certainly
an impact in terms
of what we think is important
and where we should direct
our energies, where we
should try and understand
a bit better.
When you see the upheaval that
takes place, for example, here,
or in France, or in
the rest of Europe,
then we feel we should
also start thinking about--
is there anything we can bring
to understand these issues?
And even if it takes us
slightly outside of the comfort
zone of our work until date.
We'll be relying on
all of the expertise
that our colleagues have.
So I think it's more a matter
of reorienting our brains,
both in terms of
specific kind of issues
and even on the
geography of where
those issues are concerned.
In a sense, it's kind
of brought home for me--
the current problems that
the developed country faces
brought home for me that even
when people's basic material
comfort is more or less
sustained by the fact
that they live in environment
with reasonable safety net
their full life might have
the same level of misery
and unhappiness that some of the
extremely poor people we study.
And therefore, that is also
something that is worth
thinking about very hard.
I used to think--
and to a large extent,
I still think--
I should direct my
energy and thinking
about the poorest
person in the world,
and then the second poorest
person in the world,
and then the third poorest
person in the world.
And now I realize
that, although that's,
of course, different to live
in the middle of nowhere,
and trying to deliver a child.
And it's not going well.
And there is no hospital.
That from feeling miserable,
having lost your job
in a mining town in a US--
one also has to
understand those issues.
So building on that
question, Swati [INAUDIBLE]
of [INAUDIBLE] Magazine
asks about the trend
in de-globalization
and asks specifically,
are Brexit, America First, and
several other protectionist
campaigns an outcome of
capitalism gone wrong,
in your view?
[LAUGHTER]
Is this a will not answer?
Just a small question.
[LAUGHTER]
So I think they are
a consequence of us
not taking the consequences
of globalization seriously.
I think globalization
was hurting our--
as economists, our presumption
is that that hurt is temporary.
And it goes away quickly.
Because people react to
that by moving and changing
jobs and retraining.
We know now that those
processes are slow.
And as a result, people
actually get quite badly hurt.
So I think it is a
sense in which I would
say it's not so much that--
I don't know whether this means
capitalism went right or wrong.
It does mean that I think
the way the policy responds
to the pain caused by
globalization was inadequate,
often even in the
wrong direction.
So I do think that that's
what it's partly telling us.
And a student from the
internet asks, for you,
Professor Banerjee,
what is your feeling
about being the sixth Nobel
laureate from Calcutta?
[LAUGHTER]
Young student.
Sixth-- I mean, I assume they
are all much more distinguished
than me.
[LAUGHTER]
Any more in the room?
Could you share some insight--
there haven't been many couples
that have won this prize.
So we'd love to know
more about your work.
Do you do a lot of
work at your table?
Have you inspired each other?
Are there different roles
that you each sort of
assume as you work
on these new models?
So we have two
children, aged 5 and 7,
who believe that they are
the center of the universe.
And they do not accept
kitchen table conversation.
[LAUGHTER]
So that has kind of--
the kitchen table
part had to go.
Everything else is fair game.
So I think we--
our work is our life.
Our life is our work.
There are a lot of
things we love to do.
But it turns out you
can do a lot of things
we love to do while talking.
We did spend a lot
of time cooking.
And we can cook and talk
about whatever is happening.
We talk while walking
to work and coming back.
And we also talk
about the children
when we are in
the office at MIT.
So I guess it's like a mix.
Anymore from the room
or the phone bridge?
All right, we might
be on our last one.
It's another one asking if
you might answer in French.
I'm going to--
You could try [INAUDIBLE].
I could try.
You could do both.
It's from [INAUDIBLE], Canada.
[SPEAKING FRENCH] Oh, I
already said that in English.
But they want it
in French, I guess.
[SPEAKING FRENCH] The next
steps of your research.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
And are there any
more in the room?
Students?
OK, then our last one is going
to be something of a layup,
I think, to highlight
your website.
So a journalist asks,
how can we learn more
about the methodologies to make
randomized controlled trials
that will impact our societies?
[LAUGHTER]
That'll be nice one to end on.
That feels planted.
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't plant it.
So first, we encourage you to
go to the website of the Poverty
Action Lab, where all of our
work and the work of others
is described, displayed.
So that's
www.povertyactionlab.org.
That sounds really presumptuous,
but we have a book.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, we have two books.
One of them has been
out for some time.
And it's Poor Economics.
And it's a book that builds
on the research of all
of the field in development
to try and explain
what is our understanding
of the problem of poverty--
education, health,
governance, et cetera.
It also explains the
methods in a lot of details.
So that's a place.
And even more presumptuous, we
have another book coming out
in a month, that's called
Good Economics for Hard Times.
And it's a 300 page
elaboration of what we just
discussed today--
how the times are hard.
And they are hard for
people in much deeper ways
than perhaps we had realized.
And it turns out that
economics has a lot
to say about why the times are
hard and what to do about it.
And unfortunately,
again, the vision
that people have of
economics is not that.
They think economists
are not to be trusted.
In fact, the only
people who are less
trusted than economists about
their own field of expertise
are politicians, both of
which are not very good.
And so what we are
trying to do in this book
is rely even more on the
research of other people
to show what
economists have to say
that's in a more certain and
useful way on the big problems
that affect us today.
That's immigration, and
trade, and automation,
and the rise of bigotry.
And also of course, since
this is our sensibility,
on social policy and
what to do about it.
So that was the
advertisement plug.
[LAUGHTER]
Just so it's been an amazing,
nearly hour long press
conference that we've
had you up here.
So thank you so much for
your patience and time.
Just for those-- just for
journalists, just a few
housekeeping items.
Those seeking images or
more information from MIT,
the email is questions@mit.edu.
We'll get you what you need.
You can also look
for us in the room.
The faculty will be
here for a little bit
doing some one-on-one stand-ups
with some of the cameras.
And then the webcast
will be archived online.
And we will have an audio
recording of today's event
that we can share with you.
Thanks again to all
who could join us.
Congratulations.
[APPLAUSE]
Our event is concluded.
Do we have a room
we can take them?
