Scientist & Thinker

The Esther Duflo Framework

Randomised Trials & Evidence-Based Poverty Work

IncludedNative Claude Skill + plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
4.9 rating·2773 downloads

Esther Duflo advanced human understanding by treating curiosity as a daily discipline. Esther Duflo's method of inquiry — captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask. The randomised trials & evidence-based poverty work framework distils Esther Duflo's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds. Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions Esther Duflo made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with Esther Duflo's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.

Inside the framework

A glimpse of Esther Duflo's thinking.

Core Philosophy

Small, rigorously tested changes often outperform grand theories about poverty. The poor are rational actors making optimal decisions within severe constraints—our job is to identify and remove the specific binding constraints through careful experimentation, not impose sweeping solutions based on ideology or intuition.

Five Mental Models
  1. 01
  2. 02
  3. 03
  4. 04
  5. 05

Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples — unlocked with purchase.

A Signature Question · sample

What is the specific friction preventing the behavior we want to see?

4 more questions in Esther Duflo's voice are unlocked with purchase.

What Esther Duflo Would NOT Do · sample
Launch interventions based on successful pilots without testing in new contexts—scalability requires validation, not assumption

Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.

Continue reading

The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics Esther Duflo actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.

Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.

What's inside
  • Core philosophy — 2–3 sentences grounded in Esther Duflo's documented worldview
  • Five signature mental models — each named, with concrete examples from their work
  • Decision heuristics — the concrete rules they actually used
  • Signature questions — five questions that sound like Esther Duflo, not a generic MBA
  • What they would NOT do — the anti-patterns this framework rejects
  • Copy-paste activation prompt — drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
  • Worked example — the framework applied to a realistic scenario
Delivered in two formats
  • esther-duflo.zip — a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to ~/.claude/skills/
  • esther-duflo-framework.md — plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts — anywhere
Download this framework
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Works as a Claude Skill (.zip) and as a plain .md for ChatGPT, Gemini & every LLM
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Inspired by the documented thinking of Esther Duflo. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.

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