“The economist as plumber”
Yesterday, Esther Duflo gave the American Economic Association Richard T. Ely lecture (edit: the full video of the lecture is now online). The gist of her talk was that economists should think as themselves more as plumbers who lay the pipes and fix the leaks. Economists should not merely be concerned with what policy to implement she argued, but to work out the details and practicalities of such implementation. She gave a lot of examples seemingly related to institutional design (though not through mechanisms). For instance, she showed that the transparency, thus efficiency, of a rice subsidy program could be improved by providing ID card to eligible family. But how authorities provide the cards matter, she pointed out. Likewise, not just how many government workers you hire and how much you pay them is important. How you recruit them, that is what you…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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