Belonging to humanity is a great thing for us, and I think the schools can do it. So I think we can look after the quality of education on the school even as we expand the availability of schooling.

I don't think poverty provides that much of an obstacle to education as one thinks. I think the bigger obstacle to education is the fact that it's a very hard thing to do for a first-generation schoolgoer. Because not to have parents at home who can help you, motivate you, is a problem even when the parents are in the abstract very keen on children being educated.

After all, the American society has been also based on the premise of expanding education very early. That's been [one] of the main sources of success of the Americans. And there is something that the world can learn from it and also be assisted by the United States along with Europe and the rest of the world. I really hope that this is an issue that engages the American public.

Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment.

Poverty is the deprivation of opportunity.

To say that the whole of the industrial experience of Europe and America just shows the rewards of exploiting the Third World is a gross simplification.

The understanding that women are not inferior across the world, it's something that you can get from school, not only from the book but also from chatting with other kids. It's a big impact. One of the curious things is that even when - and this we found from studies - the schools are doing pretty badly in terms of their education, about mathematics and literature and language, going to school transformed people because I think the action of schooling, the activity, is very important.