2019 Nobel Prize in Economics: Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prestigious 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics to Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer of United States for their ‘experimental approach to alleviating global poverty’. Their research will help the world community to understand, address and fight the formidable challenge of poverty.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Michael Kremer is at Harvard University.

Key Highlights

As per the Nobel committee, the research conducted by 2019’s Economics Nobel laureates has considerably improved the ability to fight global poverty. Moreover, in mere two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research. The trio’s experimental research methods have benefited over 5 million Indian children, who are part of remedial tutoring programmes in schools.

Esther Duflo has become the second woman to win prize after Elinor Ostrom (2009) of US. She is also the youngest-ever to win prize.

The announcement of Nobel Prize for Economics wraps up the 2019 Nobel season as the last week, 6 Nobel prizes were given in fields of- medicine, physics and chemistry plus two literature awards, and Peace Prize.

About Nobel Prize for Economics

It is officially known as Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Unlike other prizes, the Nobel prize for Economics, was not created by the prize founder but was created by Riksbanken, the Swedish central bank, in 1968. The first winner of prize was selected in 1969. As of now, 81 Nobel laureates in economic sciences have been awarded.

It carries a gold medal, a diploma and a 9 million-kronor (or $918,000) cash award.

About Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee

Academic: The 58-year-old was educated at Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Calcutta and Harvard University, where he received his PhD in 1988. In 2003 he founded Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with his wife Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan, and he remains one of the lab’s directors. At present, he is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Career: Banerjee is a past president of Bureau for Research in Economic Analysis of Development, a Research Associate of National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), International Research Fellow of Kiel Institute, a CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research) research fellow, a fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Econometric Society (AAASES), and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a winner of the Infosys Prize. He also served as U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2019