By: Talat Mohsin

The Swedish Academy has announced today that Indian-American Abhijit Bannerjee, his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have been awarded the Nobel prize in Economic Sciences “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”

Bannerjee,58, is an alumnus of the University of Calcutta and he has done his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Both Banerjee and his wife are professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while Michael Kremer is a professor at Harvard University. Mrs. Esther Duflo, 46, is the second woman to be awarded this prestigious prize. The first winner was Ms. Elinor Ostrom who was awarded the Nobel prize in 2009.

Incidentally, Mrs. Duflo is also the youngest winner of The Nobel prize in Economic Sciences. On the winners, the Nobel committee stated-“ 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.”

The three will receive the award on December 10 at Stockholm by King Carl XVI Gustaf in a formal ceremony. The three Laureates will equally share the prize money of 9 million Swedish Kronor.

The other awardees include Peter Handke (literature), Akira Yoshino, John B. Goodenough and M. Stanley Wittingham (chemistry), Jim Peebles , Didier Quiloz and Michael Mayer (physics), William G. Kaelin , Gregg L. Semenza and Peter J. Ratcliff (physiology or medicine), and Abey Ahmed (Peace Prize).