Good Economics for Hard Times [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Esther Duflo | Join us for the Stamp Memorial Lecture which will be delivered by the 2019 joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Esther Duflo who will be speaking about her new book Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems. Most of the issues that tear us apart today (from trade to immigration to Brexit) are, fundamentally, economic issues, but no one seems to be willing to listen to economists any more. In this lecture, based on her forthcoming book with Abhijit Banerjee with the same title, Professor Duflo will outline how a humane economics, that puts the individual and its wants and needs at the centre of its intellectual project, can guide a better conversation on the core problems that our generations need to resolve, from climate change, to nationalist rivalries, to the rise in inequality. Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). In her research, she seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment and governance. Professor Esther Duflo’s first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris. She subsequently received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1999. Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes including the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (awarded jointly with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer), the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2015), the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize (2014), the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), a John Bates Clark Medal (2010), and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship (2009). With Abhijit Banerjee, she wrote Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages. Duflo is the Editor of the American Economic Review, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. To pre-order a copy of Esther's new book, which can be collected from independent bookshop Pages of Hackney at the event, please go to Good Economics for Hard Times. Robin Burgess is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE and Director of the International Growth Centre. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEStamp This lecture is in memory of Josiah Charles Stamp who obtained a degree in economics from LSE in 1916. His thesis was published as British Incomes and Property in 1916 and launched his academic career. In 1919 he served on the Royal Commission on Income Tax and in the same year he joined Nobel Industries Ltd as secretary and director from which Imperial Chemical Industries later developed. In 1926 he became the president of the executive of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and two years later he was appointed director of the Bank of England. He also served as a governor and vice chairman of LSE. Stamp also held lectureships in economics at several universities, including Cambridge, Oxford and Liverpool. In 1938 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Stamp of Shortlands, Kent. Stamp died on 16 April 1941. In 1942 a trust was set up jointly by the Bank of England, the London Midland and Scottish Railway, ICI and the Abbey Road Building Society to pay for the organisation of a Stamp memorial lecture.