Esther Duflo: "Put dignity back at the center of social protection"

On November 7, The Professor F. de Vries Foundation, in collaboration with Utrecht University’s strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies (IOS), hosted its annual lecture. In the alluring atmosphere of the ‘Paushuize’ in Utrecht, economist Esther Duflo – this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics – took center stage with an inspiring and thoughtful keynote lecture. Sharing important thoughts and insights she had acquired writing her upcoming book Good Economics for Hard Times, she captivated the attendees with her optimistic outlook on how economics can help provide solutions for difficult political and social issues.

Before Duflo’s lecture, Hans Schenk, chair of the Professor F. de Vries Foundation, provided a warm introduction. By illuminating the history of the foundation’s annual lecture, Schenk embedded Duflo in a rich tradition of preceding lecturers. With great symbolic value he linked Duflo to laureate Jan Tinbergen, who won the first Nobel Prize in Economics in 1969. Like Duflo, Tinbergen devoted much attention to development economics. Now, exactly half a century later – in what has been dubbed the ‘Tinbergen Year’ – the Nobel Prize has again been given to a development economist. 

Good Economics for Hard Times

Subsequently, the floor was given to Duflo. In the first part of her lecture, she amply and convincingly explained how the experimental economic method which she advocates functions. Rather than working individually and theoretically, Duflo described how her work is the fruit of a large cooperating network of people; one can only discern the big picture by combining and interpreting all the insights of these individual ‘dots’. By then showing how economic science and economists currently lack societal credibility and trust, she emphasized the need of empirically grounded work and cooperation to regain a more reliable reputation. In her upcoming book, Good Economics for Hard Times, Duflo and co-writer Abhijit Banerjee debunk several persistent theoretical economic insights, and offer valuable avenues for improvement. She concluded with an important lesson for not only economists, but everyone involved in policy making: put dignity back at the center of social protection.

Quo Vadis Economics?

The final part of the day was dedicated to reflection and discussion. First, economist Coen Teulings aptly discussed how economic science has been perceived throughout history, and possible future directions of the discipline: ‘Quo Vadis Economics?’. His discussion also incorporated Good Economics for Hard Times, as Teulings had already read a draft of the book. He lauded how Duflo and Banerjee approached thorny themes like migration, racism and trade and noticed their optimistic outlook on economics. Teulings concluded that economists should emphasize human dignity rather than ascribe people with perfect economic rationality, and stressed how an experimental program such as Duflo’s contributes to that emphasis. Duflo’s lecture and Teulings’ reflection proved to be a fruitful base for a lively discussion, in which numerous attending academics participated and Esther Duflo impressed with her ample and in-depth answers and insights.

Watch the lecture online

Rather than just reading this concise summary however, we warmly invite everyone to watch Duflo’s lecture yourselves. Your interest was overwhelming and space was limited, so to satisfy everyone’s enthusiasm our colleagues from LectureNet have recorded the whole lecture. We want to kindly thank Esther Duflo for allowing us to record her insightful presentation as well as to use her slides. We hope you enjoy the lecture, and until next year!

If you like to watch the video full-screen, go directly to LectureNet.

Institutions for Open Societies

The Prof. F. de Vries Foundations collaborates with Utrecht University’s strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies (IOS) to host the lecture in Utrecht. The key note speakers and the themes they address always lie in the heart of IOS-research.