What did Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer do to win the economics Nobel?

On Monday, the couple Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Kremer from Harvard University were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics. They were recognised for their “research and experimental approach towards alleviating poverty”. 

So, who are they and what exactly have they done to deserve the world’s most prestigious honour? Here’s a selection of videos and articles detailing their lives and work. 

1. Banerjee says he went back to sleep after getting the news about his win from Stockholm. Speaking to Adam Smith from the Nobel Prize website, he also details his work on fighting poverty.

2. How does it feel sharing the Nobel with one’s spouse? Listen to Duflo talk to Adam Smith, who interviews her for the Nobel Prize website. She also talks about why it’s hard to design the right approach to fight poverty. “Without spending some time in understanding the intricacies of the lives of the poor, why they make the choices they make and why something that might seem at first surprising makes a lot of sense in a particular logic — it’s impossible to design the right approach,” she explains.

3. Kremer tells Adam Smith how he mistook his Swedish friend’s urgent message on Skype regarding the Nobel Prize as a phishing attempt. He also discusses the positive steps being taken around the world to eradicate poverty.

4. In an interview with The Economist, Banerjee speaks about how one has to get into specific details to answer the big questions about poverty.

5. Duflo talks to Michael Noer of Forbes about the need to change the approach in the fight against global poverty.

6. Dorothy Wickenden of the New Yorker speaks to Duflo and fellow economist Jeffery Sachs about poverty in developing nations.

7. How’s this for a heavyweight interview? Banerjee interviews Kremer about his work and his experience working in Kenya.

8. They “believe they are the centre of the universe and they don’t accept kitchen table conversation” about weighty matters such as economics, Newser quotes Duflo as saying in a short piece on how the economist couple’s children reacted to their win.
9. Soutik Das of BBC writes about Banerjee and Duflo’s experiments in India.

10. Jeanna Smialek writes in The New York Times about the contribution of Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer in transforming development economics and how their new experiment-based approach brought about the shift from economic theory to real-world trials.

11. Did you know Banerjee, when he was studying at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, was beaten up and sent to Tihar jail for 10 days for participating in a protest. Mid-day has the story.