Randomized Controlled Trials

At a broad level, Esther Duflo (the second economist to be profiled in the CEPR/UBS Women in Economics series) focuses on poverty. In particular, she works on poverty in poor countries like India and Africa. One area that she has done extensive work in, and is particularly passionate about, is immunization.  Here she speaks about the use of randomized controlled trials which revealed that although improving the supply of immunizations in India increased uptake, this could be substantially amplified by a little extra outlay on small incentives for people to have their children vaccinated.