What’s nice about experiments is that they are much more closely tied to what theorists think about the world than normal empirical research. You can design your experiment to exactly ask the question you want to ask. This is not true about normal empirical research. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
I was trained as an economic theorist; my job at MIT was as an economic theorist. At some level that’s still part of my identity. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
When I was a graduate student, I actually took a course in development economics and I thought it was the most boring thing in the world. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
My parents were not poor, I mean we were a very average middle-class family of academics, but my grandfather happened to have built house literally next to one of Kolkata’s largest slum. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
In my own work, I have written about how our public sector bank officials avoid making any new lending decisions – because lending always exposes them to some (infinitesimal) risk of being blamed for the loan going wrong. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
Well-designed subsidies help the poor make the best of whatever opportunities they have; poorly designed ones either do very little or actually make things worse for them. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
My sense of my own superiority over many of my classmates would have been much more muted if I knew that they had seen me failing miserably at woodwork or cross-stitch. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
If there can be films about why hockey (and not just cricket) is cool, there can be a film or two about the virtues of honest, hard work. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
If people don’t want blue-collar work, our labour costs will remain high and our competitiveness low. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
It is possible that Modi sees his life as evidence that hard physical work can triumph over every disadvantage, but if so, most of us Indians do not share his faith. Abhijit Banerjee Read Quote
