Abhijit Banerjee, wife Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer win 2019 Nobel Economics Prize

INDIAN-American Abhijit Banerjee, his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” Banerjee and French-American Duflo both work at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology while Kremer is at Harvard University. Duflo is the second woman and the youngest ever to win the economics prize. The prize includes 9 million-kronor (USD 918,000) cash, a gold medal and a diploma. The winners will equally share the prize money.

“The research conducted by this year’s Laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. They have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty, it added. Their “research findings - and those of the researchers following in their footsteps - have dramatically improved our ability to fight poverty in practice,” it said. 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, it added.

“Showing that it is possible for a woman to succeed and be recognised for success I hope is going to inspire many, many other women to continue working and many other men to give them the respect they deserve,” Duflo said at a press conference soon after the announcement. Banerjee, 58, was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D in 1988. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to his profile on the MIT website. In 2003, Banerjee founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan, and he remains one of the lab’s directors. He also served on the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Duflo, born in 1972, is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). With Banerjee, she wrote Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, which won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011 and has been translated into more than 17 languages. She has worked on health, education, financial inclusion, environment and governance.

Her first degrees were in history and economics from Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris. She subsequently received a Ph.D. In Economics from MIT in 1999. Duflo has received numerous academic honours and prizes including the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2015), the A.SK Social Science Award (2015), Infosys Prize (2014), the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), a John Bates Clark Medal (2010), and a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship (2009). She is the Editor of the American Economic Review, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Kremer, 54, is a development economist, who is currently the Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard University.

NIRMALA Banerjee, the mother of Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee Monday said it was a proud moment for her and she is very happy for his achievements. She said she is also happy as one of the joint winners of the prestigious award is her daughter-in-law Esther Duflo. Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his French-American wife Esther Duflo and another economist Michael Kremer were declared winners of the Nobel Prize for economics on Monday. The 58-year-old bagged the Nobel award for his “experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. Nirmala Banerjee herself is a former professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences and her husband Dipak Banerjee was a professor and the head of the department of Economics at then Presidency College (now University). “I am very happy and proud of his achievements.

I am yet to speak to him. I think he must be sleeping as it’s still night in the US,” she said. “He was always a brilliant and a disciplined student,” she recalled. About her 47-year-old daughter-in-law Esther Duflo, Banerjee said “She is so young and so intelligent”. Abhijit Banerjee had been educated in South Point School and Presidency College (now university in the city) from where he graduated with a BSc in 1981. After his class 12 examination he had initially taken admission in the B Stat programme at the famed Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata but left it midway to study economics at Presidency College as ISI was far from his home, his mother recalled. Physics was then an alternative, but he decided to take up economics, Nirmala recalled.

“He did great work in understanding poverty and how the poor survived. At times we used to discuss various topics and issues on economics. He has also spoken on economic issues our country is facing presently,” Nirmala Banerjee said. The 58-year-old economist received his PhD from Harvard University in 1988. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

THE Presidency University said on Monday that it is a proud moment for the institute that Abhijit Banerjee, one of its alumni and mentor group members is a joint winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics. Presidency University feels happy that two of its alumni members, both stalwarts in Economics - Amartya Sen and now Banerjee have been chosen for the Nobel in Economics, University registrar Debajyoti Konar said.

“The entire Presidency family feels immensely proud for Banerjee who has jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize along with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer,” he told PTI. “He had been a member of our mentor group and has always offered us valuable suggestions for the economics department,” Konar said. Banerjee, he said, had visited Presidency in 2018. “Whenever he visits Kolkata he makes it a point to visit his alma mater with which he is still associated”. He will be felicitated in a befitting manner when the institute reopens after Durga Puja vacation, Konar added.