Esther Duflo: commitment

Transcript context

…Oh, sure, policies can be different. But given a country, it seems the leaders can know, and if they have the will to do it, it happens. Well, if the policies are very different from one country to the other and are a complicated function of the context . . . In Ireland, you need very low tax rates, but in South Korea, you need industrial policy. That a little bit reflects our difficulty as economists to have come up with guidance for the next place. Take — I don’t know — Ethiopia, and they want to grow. The question becomes, do we have anything in the experience of the past country that will help us for sure predict the set of steps that Ethiopia needs to take that is going to lead them to grow? My firm belief is that we don’t. But if you do, then I think you have a side gig in helping Ethiopia, and that would be great. But Ethiopia has grown at about 10 percent for 10 years running. They invest about 38 percent of their GDP. It may collapse for political reasons. But if they stay on the track that they’re on, isn’t that further evidence that they figured out what they need to do to grow? They had the will to implement it. So far, it’s working, politics allowing.…

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