In her piece entitled Women Empowerment and Economic Development, Esther Duflo builds upon and expands upon many of the points we have discussed in class that were theorized by Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom. Duflo emphasizes a few key points throughout her piece, and I found a few of these quite interesting. I found section 2.5 relating to giving women more legal rights very informative. Duflo points out that by giving women in poorer, developing countries more economic freedoms, the right to own land, and legal protections, the nation will experience economic growth. Just as Sen pointed out in his book, there is great importance in giving women personal freedoms for a nation to develop, since freedom is both the means and the end for development. The second point I found important was her section about which policy decisions can be made to help empower these women and create an overall better society. One policy example Duflo mentioned was to shift more power to women in local and community elections. If that were to be done, they would better be able to understand the issues fellow women in their society face, and act upon those issues. Overall, I thought the piece was very well-thought out and carefully written. There are large barriers that must be struck down for some of her policy suggestions (like placing more women into political positions), but I am sure if there is enough interest and support, it could be done. There is of course a gap between the two sexes, but certain policy could help close the gap and result in more balance.