Abhijit Banerjee

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Abhijit Banerjee
Abhijit Banerjee FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2011 (cropped).jpg
Born (1961-02-21) February 21, 1961 (age 58)
EducationPresidency College, Calcutta
University of Calcutta (BA)
Jawaharlal Nehru University (MA)
Harvard University (PhD)
Spouse(s)Arundhati Tuli (divorced)
Esther Duflo (2015–present)
AwardsNobel Memorial Prize (2019)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsDevelopment economics
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisorEric Maskin
Doctoral studentsEsther Duflo[2]
Dean Karlan[3]
Benjamin Jones

Abhijit Binayak Banerjee (Bengali: অভিজিৎ বিনায়ক বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়; born 1961) is an Indian American economist of Bengali heritage. Banerjee shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."[4][5] He is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Banerjee is co-founder of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (along with economists Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan). He is a research affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action, and a member of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty. Banerjee was a president of the Bureau for the Research in the Economic Analysis of Development, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, an international research fellow of the Kiel Institute, fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow at the Econometric Society. He also has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. He is the co-author of Poor Economics. Lastly, he also serves on the academic advisory board of Plaksha University, an upcoming science and technology university in India.[6] His new book, co-authored with Esther Duflo, "Good Economics in Hard Times" (Juggernaut Books), will be out in October 2019.

Early life

Banerjee was born in Dhule, India, to Nirmala Banerjee, a professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and Dipak Banerjee, a professor and the head of the Department of Economics at Presidency College, Calcutta.

He attended South Point School and Presidency College, Calcutta as a graduating student of the University of Calcutta, where he completed his B.S. degree in economics in 1981. Later, he completed his M.A. in economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi in 1983.[7] Later, he went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics at Harvard University in 1988. The subject of his doctoral thesis was "Essays in Information Economics."

Career

Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after he had taught at Harvard University and Princeton University.

His work focuses on development economics. Together with Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer, John A. List, and Sendhil Mullainathan, he has proposed field experiments as an important methodology to discover causal relationships in economics.

He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.[8] He also was honoured with the Infosys Prize 2009 in the social sciences category of economics. He is also the recipient of the inaugural Infosys Prize in the category of social sciences (economics).[9]

In 2012, he shared the Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Business Book with co-author Esther Duflo for their book Poor Economics.[10]

In 2013, he was named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to a panel of experts tasked with updating the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 (their expiration date).[11]

In 2014, he received the Bernhard-Harms-Prize from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

In 2019, he delivered Export-Import Bank Of India's 34th Commencement Day Annual Lecture on Redesigning Social Policy.[12]

In 2019, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, together with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, for their work alleviating global poverty. [13][14]

Personal life

Abhijit Banerjee was married to Dr. Arundhati Tuli Banerjee, a lecturer of literature at MIT.[15][16] Abhijit and Arundhati had one son together, before they divorced.[15]

Abhijit has a child (born 2012) with co-researcher, former doctoral advisee, and MIT professor Esther Duflo.[17][18] Abhijit was a joint supervisor of Esther's PhD in economics at MIT in 1999.[19][17] Esther is also a Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT.[20] Abhijit and Esther formally married each other in 2015.

Publications

Books

  • Aghion, Philippe; Banerjee, Abhijit (2005). Volatility And Growth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199248612.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak; Bénabou, Roland; Mookherjee, Dilip, eds. (2006). Understanding Poverty. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195305203.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak (2005). Making Aid Work. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262026154.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit V.; Duflo, Esther (2011). Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781610390408.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak; Duflo, Esther, eds. (2017). Handbook of Field Experiments, Volume 1. North–Holland (an imprint of Elsevier). ISBN 9780444633248.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak; Duflo, Esther, eds. (2017). Handbook of Field Experiments, Volume 2. North–Holland (an imprint of Elsevier). ISBN 9780444640116.
  • Banerjee, Abhijit Vinayak ( 2019 ). A Short History of Poverty Measurements . Juggernaut Books.

References

  1. ^ Hannon, Dominic Chopping and Paul. "Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded for Work Alleviating Poverty". WSJ. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  2. ^ Duflo, Esther (1999), Essays in empirical development economics. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  3. ^ Karlan, Dean S. (2002), Social capital and microfinance. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  4. ^ "The Prize in Economic Sciences 2019" (PDF) (Press release). Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 14 October 2019.
  5. ^ Desk, The Hindu Net (14 October 2019). "Abhijit Banerjee among three to receive Economics Nobel". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Plaksha University". plaksha.org. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  7. ^ "Abhijit Banerjee Short Bio". Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Department of Economics. 24 October 2017. Retrieved 24 October 2017.
  8. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 17 May 2011.
  9. ^ Infosys Prize 2009 – Social Sciences – Economics Archived 17 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "UCLA Anderson Announces 2012 Gerald Loeb Award Winners". UCLA Anderson School of Management. 26 June 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  11. ^ "Ban names high-level panel to map out 'bold' vision for future global development efforts". Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  12. ^ https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/make-govt-jobs-less-cushy-mit-economist-abhijit-banerjee-on-10-quota-119010901160_1.html
  13. ^ "Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Michael Kremer awarded Nobel prize for Economics". Newsd www.newsd.in. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  14. ^ "Indian-American Economist Abhijit Banerjee Among 3 Awarded Nobel Prize for Fighting Poverty". News18. Retrieved 14 October 2019.
  15. ^ a b "Malcolm Adiseshiah Award 2001, A Profile: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee" (PDF). Malcolm & Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust & Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS). 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  16. ^ "Global Studies and Languages, Biography: Arundhati Tuli Banerjee". MIT. 18 August 2018. Archived from the original on 18 August 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019.
  17. ^ a b Gapper, John (16 March 2012). "Lunch with the FT: Esther Duflo". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  18. ^ "Esther's baby". Project Syndicate. 23 March 2012. Archived from the original on 27 November 2015. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ "Esther Duflo CV". Esther Duflo at MIT. 2018. Archived from the original on 9 August 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2019.

External links