Abhijit Banerjee

By Sara L. Austin, EdD

Abhijit Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his B.Sc from the University of Calcutta, his M.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and his Ph.D from Harvard University. He is a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, with his wife Esther Duflo (also appearing on this list). Together, they are only the sixth married couple to be awarded a Nobel Prize, which they shared with collaborator Michael Kremer in 2019.

His research has focused on poverty and development. Through the Poverty Action Lab, he has conducted many experiments to determine patterns of causality between economic variables. He was chosen by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to assist with the update of the Millennium Development Goals. Banerjee is a member of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty and the Innovations for Poverty Action. He currently serves on the advisory board of Plaksha University.

He has written numerous books and articles, some of which he has written in collaboration with his wife, Esther Duflo. They were awarded the Gerald Loeb Award for honorable mention for their book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, published in 2012. Their most recent book is called Good Economics for Hard Times.

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