The town that changed economics

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

In the early 90s, when a young economist named Michael Kremer finished his PhD, there had been a few economic studies based on randomized trials. But they were rare. In part because randomized trials – in which you recruit two statistically identical groups, choose one of them to get a treatment, and then compare what happens to each group – are expensive, and they take a lot of time.

But then, by chance, Michael had the opportunity to run a randomized trial in Busia, Kenya. He helped a nonprofit test whether the aid they were giving to local schools helped the students. That study paved the way for more randomized trials, and for other economists to use the method.

On today's show, how Busia, Kenya, became the place where economists pioneered a more scientific way to study huge problems, from contaminated water to low graduation rates, to HIV transmission. And how that research changed government programs and aid efforts around the world.

This episode was produced by James Sneed with help from Willa Rubin. It was engineered by James Willetts. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Molly Messick. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:06.3	The police were Carol and Nicasa grew up.
0:09.0	She says it's not a place she ever expected the rest of the world to care about.
0:12.7	I was born and raised in a small town in Weston, Kenya called Bussia.
0:18.3	It's a one street town.
0:19.9	You know, it's a town that doesn't have a roundabout.
0:22.4	Bussia, Kenya.
0:23.4	It's right on Kenya's border with Uganda.
0:26.2	So it's a busy international crossing point.
0:29.4	There's lots of truck traffic, hauling things back and forth.
0:32.8	It made getting around Bussia kind of treacherous when Carol was a kid.
0:36.4	We would ride at the back of our bicycles, not call border borders.
0:40.4	And all the time we freaked out whenever there was a truck coming because they're not
0:44.7	very self.
0:46.2	When Carol graduated from high school in the mid 90s, she went to Nairobi.
0:49.8	She enrolled in a certificate program, studying computers.
0:53.0	But she missed home.
0:54.6	One day, while she's away, her dad finds a way to bring her back to Bussia.
0:59.8	He hears about a group of foreigners who have come to town.
1:03.2	Researchers who are doing work at a local school and so he seeks them out.
1:06.9	All dad like, but very, very casual.
1:09.9	By the way, my daughter is doing computers.
	...

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