"Do free bed nets in some countries lead to more cases of malaria? Could anti-parasite pills raise school attendance in one country and have no effect in another? How cheap does preventative care have to be for low-income families to see the doctor? There might not be a perfect way to answer these thorny questions on a country-by-country basis. But some leading scientists think the most rigorous answer comes from what they call "randomized controlled trials." Last year, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, published a book called Poor Economics (...) it stakes a larger claim against 'grand universal answers' and 'sweeping conclusions' about poverty." A leading development economist speaks on the virtues and limitations of a data-driven approach to healing the world's most intractable problems.
