The 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
Officially known as the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the trio for introducing a new approach to “obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty.” Their system involves dividing the issue into more manageable questions, which are answerable through experiments, according to a press release.
This experimental research method has now come to dominate developmental economics.
“The Laureates’ research findings – and those of the researchers following in their footsteps – have dramatically improved our ability to fight poverty in practice. As a direct result of one of their studies, more than five million Indian children have benefitted from effective programmes of remedial tutoring in schools. Another example is the heavy subsidies for preventive healthcare that have been introduced in many countries,” the release stated.
Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, born in Mumbai, received his PhD from Harvard University in 1988 and is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Presidency University. He is also the co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
Esther Duflo from France received her PhD in 1999 from MIT. She is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT as well as the co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
Michael Kremer received his PhD in 1992 from Harvard University and is the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University. He was named one of Scientific American’s 50 researchers of the year in 2006, and has won awards for his work on health and agricultural economics.
The prize money is 9 million Swedish krona, or around Rs 65 lakh, to be shared equally between the Laureates.
Abhijit and Esther, who are married, have also authored a book together, titled Poor Economics published in 2011.