Esther Duflo: Social experiments to fight poverty

This talk is really worth watching, certainly for those interested in knowledge for development.

Duflo points out that case controlled studies can inform policy decisions on how to allocate resources to alleviate aspects of poverty, and does so with real data from her own field work. Far too much time and effort is spent on things that don't work, and consequently not enough is spent on the things that are really cost effective.