2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 14 October 2019.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Abhijit Banerjee was born in 1961 in Mumbai, India, and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. Esther Duflo was born in 1972 in Paris, France, and is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. Michael Kremer was born in 1964 in New York, the United States, and is affiliated with Harvard University, Cambridge.

Why it matters

The three economists use experiments, similar to medical trials, to test which policies work best in reducing poverty. Duflo is the second woman to receive the economics prize.

The prize

The prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895. Strictly, this award is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, but is presented alongside the Nobel Prizes.