Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer Awarded Nobel Prize.

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo of MIT and Michael Kremer of Harvard University, all of whom are long-time NBER research associates, were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The prize recognizes their contributions to development economics and the study of global poverty. In particular, it cites their championing of randomized controlled trials and field experiments as methodologies for analyzing how a wide range of policy interventions--in health, education, credit markets, and local governance, among others--can contribute to poverty alleviation.

The laureates' work "has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new, experiment-based approach has transformed development economics," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement announcing the award. A key element of the researchers' strategy is a focus on questions that concern specific contributors to poverty, such as lack of education or poor health. Their central methodological contribution is the recognition that these questions "are often best answered via carefully designed experiments among the people who are most affected."

The full announcement of the Nobel Prize award and a longer explanation of the scientific contributions that underlie this work may be found on the Nobel prizes website.

On December 8, 2019, the laureates delivered lectures in Stockholm on the subject of their prize-winning work. Banerjee and Duflo each lectured on "Field Experiments and the Practice of Economics;" Kremer lectured on "Experimentation, Innovation, and Economics." Videos of the lectures my be accessed at:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/banerjee/lecture/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/duflo/lecture/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/kremer/lecture/

Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT and a co-director of the Adbul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). He is a research associate in the NBER programs on Development Economics and Economic Fluctuations and Growth.

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