There is little doubt that we know little enough about the world we live in that it is often worth finding out the simple things, rather than continue to engage in what some would term flights of theoretical fantasy. Are people really credit-rationed? Does rising income automatically make for better nutrition and health? If we had the option to throw in more textbooks, or reduce class size, or add more teachers, or install monitoring devices to track teacher attendance, which one should we do? Do women leaders behave differently from men in the policies that they adopt? Do households behave as one frictionless unit? Or, if one is the big-picture sort, have countries indeed converged over the last 200, 500 years? Are richer countries more democratic? How many excess female deaths have occurred in China or India because of gender bias? Are poorer countries more “corrupt”?, and so on. The list is practically endless.