Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (; born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-American economist who is currently the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

International Professor of Economics at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Banerjee shared the

2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded jointly to the economist couple Abhijit Banerjee (b. 1961), Esther Duflo-Banerjee (b. 1972) and their colleague Michael Kremer (b. 1964) "for their experimental approach to alleviatin ...

with

Esther Duflo Esther Duflo, FBA (; born 25 October 1972) is a French–American economist who is a professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-founder and co-director of the Abd ...

and

Michael Kremer Michael Robert Kremer (born November 12, 1964) is an American development economist who is University Professor in Economics And Public Policy at the University of Chicago. He is the founding director of the Development Innovation Lab at the B ...

"for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty". He and

, who are married, are the sixth married couple to jointly win a Nobel Prize. * * *

Early life and education

Abhijit Banerjee was born to a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

father and to a

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

mother in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. * * * * * His father,

Dipak Banerjee Dipak Banerjee (1930-2007) was an Indian economist. He obtained his Bachelor, later on Doctorate from the London School of Economics and taught at Presidency College, Calcutta where he eventually became head of the economics department. Among his s ...

, was a professor of economics at

Presidency College, Calcutta Presidency University, Kolkata (formerly known as Presidency College, Kolkata) is a second major public state aided research university located in College Street, Kolkata. Considered as one of best colleges when Presidency College was affili ...

, and his mother Nirmala Banerjee (née Patankar), a professor of economics at the

Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) is a social science and humanities research and teaching institute in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. History Established in 1973 jointly by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and ...

. His father, Dipak Banerjee, earned a PhD in economics from the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

. He received his school education in South Point High School, a renowned educational institution in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. After his schooling, he took admission at Presidency College, then an affiliated college of the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every year, ...

and now an autonomous university, where he completed his BSc(H) degree in economics in 1981. Later, he completed his M.A. in economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi in 1983. While studying in JNU, he was arrested and imprisoned in

Tihar Jail Tihar Prisons, also called Tihar Jail and Tihar Ashram, is a prison complex in India and the largest complex of prisons in South Asia. Run by Department of Delhi Prisons, Government of Delhi, the prison contains nine central prisons, and is one ...

during a protest after students

gherao Gherao, meaning "encirclement", is a word which denotes a tactic used by labour activists and union leaders in India; it is similar to picketing. Usually, a group of people would surround a politician or a government building until their demands ...

ed the then Vice Chancellor PN Srivastava of the university. He was released on bail and charges were subsequently dropped against the students. * * * Later, he went on to obtain a PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1988. The subject of his doctoral thesis was "Essays in Information Economics."

Academic career

Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he has taught at

and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. He has also been a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. His work focuses on

development economics Development economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural ...

. Together with Esther Duflo he has discussed

field experiments Field experiments are experiments carried out outside of laboratory settings. They randomly assign subjects (or other sampling units) to either treatment or control groups in order to test claims of causal relationships. Random assignment help ...

as an important methodology to discover causal relationships in economics. He was elected a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 2004. He was also honored with the Infosys Prize 2009 in the social sciences category of economics. He is also the recipient of the inaugural

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award given to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards in India to r ...

in the category of social sciences (economics). He also served on the Social Sciences jury for the

in 2018. In 2012, he shared the Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Business Book with co-author Esther Duflo for their book ''

Poor Economics ''Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty'' (2011) is a non-fiction book by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both professors of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Nobel Memorial Priz ...

''. In 2013, he was named by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to a panel of experts tasked with updating the

Millennium Development Goals The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millenn ...

after 2015 (their expiration date). In 2014, he received the Bernhard-Harms-Prize from the

Kiel Institute for the World Economy The Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Institut für Weltwirtschaft, or IfW) is an independent, non-profit economic research institute and think tank based in Kiel, Germany. In 2017, it was ranked as one of the top 50 most influential think ta ...

. In 2019, he delivered Export-Import Bank of India's 34th Commencement Day Annual Lecture on Redesigning Social Policy. In 2019, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, together with Esther Duflo and

, for their work alleviating global poverty.

Research and work in India

Banerjee and his co-workers try to measure the effectiveness of actions (such as government programmes) in improving people's lives. For this, they use randomized controlled trials, similar to clinical trials in medical research. For example, although polio vaccination is freely available in India, many mothers were not bringing their children for the vaccination drives. Banerjee and Prof. Esther Duflo, also from MIT, tried an experiment in

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...

, where they gave a bag of pulses to mothers who vaccinated their children. Soon, the immunization rate went up in the region. In another experiment, they found that learning outcomes improved in schools that were provided with teaching assistants to help students with special needs. Banerjee is a co-founder of

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fi ...

(along with economists

and

Sendhil Mullainathan Sendhil Mullainathan () (born c. 1973) is an American professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author of '' Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much'' (with Eldar Sha ...

). In India he serves on the academic advisory board of

Plaksha University Plaksha University is a not-for-profit private research university located in Mohali, Punjab, India. It is set up by a group of over 60 business leaders and technology entrepreneurs with a mission to create a new model of higher education that ...

, a science and technology university established in 2010.

Personal life

Abhijit Banerjee was married to Dr. Arundhati Tuli Banerjee, a lecturer of literature at MIT. Abhijit and Arundhati had one son together and later divorced. Their son, born in 1991, died in an accident in 2016. In 2015, Banerjee married his co-researcher, MIT professor

; they have two children. Banerjee was a joint supervisor of Duflo's PhD in economics at MIT in 1999. Duflo is also a Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT.

Publications

Books

* * * * * * * Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak ( 2019 ). ''A Short History of Poverty Measurements.''

Juggernaut Books Juggernaut Books (informally Juggernaut) is digital book publishing house headquartered in New Delhi, India. The publisher emphasizes on short length books written by new writers. It also allows writers to self-publish their books through their ...

. *

Awards

Abhijit Banerjee was awarded the

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...

in 2019 along with his two co-researchers

and

"for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty". The press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted: "Their experimental research methods now entirely dominate

." The Nobel committee commented: ::"Banerjee, Duflo and their co-authors concluded that students appeared to learn nothing from additional days at school. Neither did spending on textbooks seem to boost learning, even though the schools in Kenya lacked many essential inputs. Moreover, in the Indian context Banerjee and Duflo intended to study, many children appeared to learn little: in results from field tests in the city of

Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capita ...

fewer than one in five third-grade students could correctly answer first-grade curriculum math test questions. ::"In response to such findings, Banerjee, Duflo and co-authors argued that efforts to get more children into school must be complemented by reforms to improve school quality." The Nobel Prize was a major recognition for their chosen field - Development Economics, and for the use of Randomised Controlled Trials. It evoked mixed emotions in India, where his success was celebrated with nationalistic fervour while approach and pro-poor focus were seen as a negation of India’s current government’s ideology as well as broader development discourse. He was awarded the

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Docto ...

( Honoris Causa) by the

in January 2020.Calcutta University Awards Doctor Of Letters Degree To Abhijit Banerjee
/ref> Abhijit Banerjee and

received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

in September 2022.

References

External links

Abhijit Banerjee's Home Page at MIT
includin
his CV with comprehensive lists of awards and publications

Poverty Action Lab
* *
Publications
at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

* including the Prize Lecture 8 December 2019 ''Field experiments and the practice of economics'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Abhijit 1961 births Living people American people of Bengali descent American people of Marathi descent 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis Marathi people People from Mumbai People from Maharashtra Presidency University, Kolkata alumni University of Calcutta alumni Jawaharlal Nehru University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty 20th-century Indian economists 21st-century Indian economists 21st-century American economists Naturalized citizens of the United States American economists American writers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Indian emigrants to the United States Indian microfinance people Indian male writers Writers from Kolkata 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Indian Nobel laureates Indian political writers American academics of Indian descent American Nobel laureates Nobel laureates in Economics Indian economists