The general thrust of Duflo’s research is that although the poor can often be “clever in the way

they spend what little money they have” (The Telegraph, 7 August 2011), they often make poor
choices with disastrous consequences. In the context of Kenyan farmers’ reluctance to purchase
fertiliser: “one senses a reluctance of poor people to commit themselves psychologically to a
project of making more money” (Banerjee and Duflo 2007, 165), according to Duflo. The two
most common impediments to good decision making are a lack of information and people’s
tendency (according to behavioural theory) to weigh short-term costs more heavily than longer-
term benefits. While both rich and poor alike make welfare decreasing choices, the consequences
of these mistakes are much more catastrophic for those eking out a marginal existence. Duflo
applies this logic to the problems of health and nutrition. Poor people often do not take available
and affordable options that would improve their health. They do not use chlorine tablets,
vaccinations or mosquito netting, even when these are cheap and readily available. Further, poor
people often waste their money on expensive or ineffective options. The malnourished poor spend
money on tobacco and alcohol, expensive grains like rice and wheat, sugar and processed foods
when they should be choosing more leafy vegetables and coarse grains. So, the problem is that the
poor actually harm themselves by making sub-par meal choices, especially for children and
babies. What poor people really need is not more resources but the proper incentives to use what
they have differently (Banerjee and Duflo 2011, 41–71). How do you get them to choose proven
health remedies like chlorine tablets, vaccinations and mosquito netting or better nutrition? You
can move the poor in the right direction with small gifts. For example, RCTs can determine
precisely what incentives will allow a Kenyan farmer to overcome his or her reluctance to
purchase fertiliser (viewed as “a project of making more money”). Duflo claims that these
resistances are quite “weak” and so small incentives like a free set of plates or a bag of lentils will
convince people to do what is good for them, like using chlorine tablets or getting their children
vaccinated. The solution to malnourishment, for example, is to implement the appropriate
incentive to get poor families to sprinkle micronutrients on school lunches and foods people like
to eat

A third problem, which is a corollary of the second, is that as an analytical tool, RCT is incapable
of evaluating large-scale, collective, non-individualised solutions to alleviate poverty. This is well
illustrated in the difficulties that Duflo encounters in her analysis of entrepreneurship. Her careful
review of studies on microlending revealed that the poor were not particularly entrepreneurial.
They do not make investments that would improve their future incomes. The stated reason –
although, again, testing on this hypothesis is in short supply – is that such investments would not
improve their income very much and so people do not think it is worth the effort (Banerjee and
Duflo 2011, 225). What they really want, according to Duflo’s study, is a safe, secure job. It is
here that RCT gets into trouble. How does one increase the number of safe, secure jobs? These are
not the type of policy decisions that RCT, so far at least, is capable of evaluating. In order to come
up with some policy answers to this crucial question, Duflo offers a laundry list of massive, large-
scale government interventions, from South Korea-style economic planning to better urban design,
to increase mobility to the cities where better jobs reside (Banerjee and Duflo 2011, 232–235).
These recommendations have not been through the rigours of RCT, nor, most likely, is this even
possible. Princeton’s Angus Deaton argues that RCT may possibly be able to evaluate specific,
small-scale programmes, but it is far less capable of generalizing those results to either larger scale
policies or even similar policies in other nations with different contexts (Deaton 2010, 448). The
problem is not with Duflo’s recommendations, which we would argue are actually fairly
reasonable, but that RCT cannot test whether these recommendations might be worthwhile, which
demonstrates how limited RCT is in evaluating the crucial questions of development. As Deaton
claims, “we are unlikely to banish poverty in the modern world by trials alone” (Deaton 2010,
450)
this improvement is evidence of overcoming people’s natural tendency to weigh present costs
more heavily than future benefits

this improvement is evidence of overcoming people’s natural tendency to weigh present costs
more heavily than future benefits

Another area that involves more is education grants are placed below.

1.Children aged 6-11 years attend primary school for at least 85% of the school day
each month.

2.Children aged 12-14 enter high school and attend at least 85% of the school day
each month.

The 4Ps has already achieved numerous benefits in improving primary education
and is also considered for higher education in 2014. This policy is reflected in
increased school enrolment and attendance rates. Initial evaluation of the pilot
program showed a significant increase in school enrolments, attendance rates, and
elementary school completion rate around 98%. Near universal school enrolment of
elementary age children for 4Ps households

of pupil numbers (Fernandez and Olfindo, 2011).

The basic policy requires children aged 6-11 or 12-14 to attend elementary school or
high school and maintain a minimum attendance rate of 85% per month. It is
important to note that this policy restricts the use of educational grants solely for
educational purposes, and families are only eligible to receive these grants after their
children have completed their monthly classes in school (Catubing and Renato,
2017). According to the Duflo’s behavioral economic, the 4Ps program utilizes
commitment devices to promote self-control among low to middle-income
households.

The grant children prior to their enrollment in school may result in households
allocating the funds towards debt repayment rather than educational expenses. For
households, education is perceived as a long-term objective rather than an
immediate issue that needs resolving. （Datta and Mullainathan, 2014）according to
Duflo, it be describe as people tendency (according to behavioral theory)
to weigh short-term costs more heavily than longer-term benefits

The implementation of after-education for example the government will give the
money after the child has been in school for a month . After-education payment can
effectively address this issue by preventing households from diverting the funds for
other purposes, such as repaying recent loans. Simultaneously, the introduction of a
monthly payment policy also reflects the notion of reducing self-control and
transforming the structure of one-time education subsidies into a series of payments
over a specific period, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of these subsidies.

Since the decisions of the children in the family are often made by the parents,
improving the quality of the parents is the most important thing to solve the problem.
However, for low-income parents, changing their minds to let them know that keeping
their children in school is more important than paying off debts is not something that
can be done in a short time. Therefore, the micro-incentives in 4Ps program can
make up for this deficiency. Duflo said it that “ What poor people really need is
not more resources but the proper incentives to use what they have
differently”. (Banerjee and Duflo 2011, 41–71) Obviously, low-income
people lack money, and they need the cash incentives though this requires them to
complete some precondition-following the conditionalities in 4Ps program as a
restriction for them to gain the grant. The micro-incentives use very small cost to
attract low-income people and incentive them have more preference on long-term
welfare.

Noteworthy, the Philippines' CCT program is a mixed program. According to

Vermehren (2003), “Countries with large differences between rich and poor are better
served by proxy means testing, while geographic targeting may be more efficient for
largely homogenous populations. It not only categorizes the poor based on different
income levels but also classifies areas that should receive assistance according to
relative poverty. This contradicts the principles of behavioral economics, which argue
that when individuals are labeled as poor by policy, they tend to exhibit psychological
constraints that make them less inclined to effectively utilize subsidies and more
likely to pay off debt , or we can say compare with long run welfare, the poor people
will more prefer the short run welfare.(Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013). However, the
implementation of the 4Ps demonstrates an opposite outcome. The long-term nature
of this aid enables investments in education and healthcare, providing to be far more
efficient than relying solely on the psychology of impoverished individuals. That is
because Duflo’s chaim is based on small-scale aid interventions, but not consider the
macroeconomic interventions or we can said that the Doflo behavior economic is only
have microeconomics escape, but didn’t consider countries intervention. However, in
the reality, almost assistant or grant should be based on region or countries
intervention.

Such as vaccinations and primary education’s spread in the low-income level or the
developing countries. So compare with Duflo’s claim, the 4ps is more realistic for the
developing countries.

值得注意的是，菲律宾的有条件现金转移支付项目是一个混合项目 。
ermehren(2003)认为，贫富差距较大的国家可以通过代理经济状况调查更好地
服务，而地理定位对于基本同质的人口可能更有效。它不仅根据不同的收入水
平对穷人进行分类，而且根据相对贫困程度对应该接受援助的地区进行分类。
这与行为经济学的原则相矛盾，行为经济学认为，当个人被政策贴上贫困的标
签时，他们往往会表现出心理上的约束，使他们更不倾向于有效利用补贴，更
有可能偿还债务，或者我们可以说，与长期福利相比，穷人会更倾向于短期福
利。(Mullainathan and Shafir, 2013)。然而，4p 的实施却显示出相反的结
果。这种援助的长期性使得在教育和医疗保健方面的投资比仅仅依靠贫困个人
的心理要有效得多。这是因为迪弗洛的链条是建立在小规模援助干预的基础上，
而没有考虑宏观经济干预，或者说多弗洛行为经济学只是有微观经济学的逃避，
而没有考虑国家干预。然而，在现实中，几乎援助或赠款都应该是基于地区或
国家的干预。比如疫苗接种和初等教育在低收入国家或发展中国家的普及。因
此，与迪弗洛的主张相比，4ps 对发展中国家来说更为现实。