Suspect data

Aakar Patel in his article in the Business Standard on February 2 mentioned the following: “A study by MIT's Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee showed that there was a 97 per cent chance that a government doctor in India would diagnose your ailment wrong”.

This being a highly suspect assertion, I wanted to verify if the authors have actually said so. I bought the book called “Poor Economics” written by them and I did not find it there. So I wrote to Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo if they have written it anywhere else. I wrote to Aakar Patel also to tell me the source of his statement. He said that Banerjee spoke to him about it. Then again I wrote to Banerjee and Duflo that Aakar Patel says that Banerjee has told him about it. I wrote in this second letter to Banerjee to confirm it. But he has not replied. Also I wrote to Aakar Patel once again that Banerjee has not claimed this statement to be his. He has not replied. Therefore it is quite clear that the responsibility for this statement lies with Aakar Patel. Reading the big book called “Poor Economics” I am quite sure that Banerjee and Duflo would not make such outlandish statement about 97 per cent of government doctors.

To test the vera city of this statement I posted this statement on the Facebook. All people (more than hundred) have categorically opined that this statement is completely false.

Sukumar Mukhopadhyay New Delhi

Aakar Patel responds: https://economics.mit.edu/files/530; Page 18. Banerjee and I also had a session on this at the Times Lit Carnival on December 8, 2012.