"For their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."
So the Royal Academy of Sciences' motivation for the three award winners of the Swedish Riksbank's prize in economic science sounded to Alfred Nobel's memory. It is clear that Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer will be the 2019 award winners.
Esther Duflo is a development economist at Harvard University and has, among other things, developed field studies in developing countries to be able to more easily understand how to fight poverty. Esther Duflo, who is 47, is the second woman of all time to receive the economics award.
She is married to one of the other award winners, Abhijit Banerjee from India. He also researches in the field of economics and poverty and works at Massechusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Michael Kremer is from the US and works at Harvard University and has researched education, health, water and agriculture in developing countries.
- I am very humbled by this award. I thought you had to be infinitely older than we are to get this award, ”says Esther Duflo when the press gets the opportunity to interview her over the phone at the Royal Academy of Sciences.
"The fight against poverty is based on caricatures"She believes that the economy price is special because it reflects not only economics research but changes in the world.
- When it comes to combating poverty, it is easy to go after caricatures. Believing that poor people are lazy or desperate. But with our research we want to make the fight against poverty based on science, says Esther Duflo.
According to her, the research that she, Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer are dealing with is finding the very root of poverty in mainly developing countries. And then to attack the causes one by one in place.