The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Monday awarded Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer the prestigious Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
“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,” said the statement released by the Academy.
The trio’s experimental research methods have benefited more than five million Indian children, who are part of remedial tutoring programmes in schools, the Academy said.
In February 2015, Banerjee and wife Duflo
spoke to The Indian Express about their experiments with social sector schemes in India, why NREGA does a “poor” job of identifying the needy and how RTE has contributed to worsening learning levels in schools. They are the sixth couple to win the prize.
