Meet Abhijit Banerjee, the Indian-origin economist who won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics
Abhijit Banerjee won the Nobel Prize along with wife Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.
For people working as academics, the Nobel Prize has been the most prestigious award one can get for the groundbreaking work in the fields of chemistry, physics, medicine, economics, literature, and peacekeeping. And this year is no different.
In the last few weeks, several Swedish committees associated with the Nobel Prize have been announcing the winners for this year. Among them is Abhijit Banerjee, an Indian-origin economist who will receive the honour for his work in the field of economics.
Abhijit Banerjee (Image: Live Mint)
This is not the first time that an Indian or an Indian-origin academic has received the award. In 1998, Amartya Sen became the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contribution to welfare economics. Almost 20 years later, the prestigious award is bestowed upon Abhijit Banerjee.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will award this years’ prize to the 58-year-old economist along with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.
A statement released by the Academy reads,
“The research conducted by the 2019 Economic Sciences 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 research by these economists has benefitted five million children in India as well. According to the Academy, these children are part of remedial tutoring programmes in schools.
Esther Duflo, a French-American economist and one of the awardees, is the youngest and the second woman after Elinor Ostrom to win the prize, reports Indian Express.
Abhijit along with his wife Esther Duflo (Image: Indian Express)
While Abhijit and his wife Esther work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Michael works at Harvard University. The trio received a 9 million-kronor, or about $918,000 cash award, a gold medal, and a diploma.
Amid the wishes that are being poured in to congratulate Abhijit, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a letter said,
“My heartiest congratulations to you and your co-winners. Your scholarly work on poverty alleviation and development of new techniques such as Randomised Control trials are truly path-breaking”, reports NDTV.
The Nobel laureate who studied at the University of Calcutta and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, received his PhD from Harvard University in 1988. He has been actively involved in the field of economics, following which in 2003 he founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with his wife and Sendhil Mullainathan.
He is also known for serving for the Post 2015 Development Agenda at the UN Secretary-General High-Level Panel of Eminent personalities.
(Edited by Suman Singh)
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