Calcutta University topper Abhijeet Banerjee wins Nobel Prize, let’s congratulate him

In massive news for India, Abhijit Banerjee was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on ‘global poverty’.

“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,” as per the statement on Monday.

Credits: Business Standard

Banerjee who was born 1961 in India, received his PhD in 1988 from Harvard University. He was recognized for his ability to divide the vast issue of fighting global poverty into smaller subjects, the committee added in a statement.

Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Kremer of Harvard University were the others who were also awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics.

“In the mid-1990s, Michael Kremer and his colleagues demonstrated how powerful this approach can be, using field experiments to test a range of interventions that could improve school results in western Kenya,” it said.

“Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, often with Michael Kremer, soon performed similar studies of other issues and in other countries. Their experimental research methods now entirely dominate development economics.”

“AbhijitBanerjee, recipient of #NobelPrize2019 for Economics, founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which has carried out 568 field experiments, or Randomised Control Trials (RCTs), in 10 years in several countries, including India,” The Hindu tweeted.

“Congratulations to #AbhijitBanerjee on winning the Nobel Prize in Economics. Abhijit helped conceptualise NYAY that had the power to destroy poverty and boost the Indian economy.

Instead, we now have Modinomics, that’s destroying the economy and boosting poverty,” Rahul Gandhi tweeted.