The Nobel Prize for Economic scientists for 2019 was awarded to three economists and researchers whose works aimed to reduce poverty.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 to Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA, as well as Michael Kremer from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA, “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
The three economic researchers laid down the groundwork for a research-based approach in fighting global poverty. The Committee said that the work done by the three new economic laureates had transformed development economics – a flourishing field of study which can be credited to the three.
“Despite recent dramatic improvements, one of humanity’s most urgent issues is the reduction of global poverty, in all its forms. More than 700 million people still subsist on extremely low incomes. Every year, around five million children under the age of five still die of diseases that could often have been prevented or cured with inexpensive treatments. Half of the world’s children still leave school without basic literacy and numeracy skills,” reads the press release of the announcement of the three laureates.
The three have developed a research-based method of obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty. “It involves dividing this issue into smaller, more manageable, questions – for example, the most effective interventions for improving educational outcomes or child health. They have shown that these smaller, more precise, questions are often best answered via carefully designed experiments among the people who are most affected,” the Committee added.
Because of the scientific approach of the new laureates on poverty alleviation, more than five million Indian children have benefitted from effective programs of remedial tutoring in schools.
The three laureates join the roster of the new laureates announced since last week in the field of medicine, chemistry, physics, literature, and peace.
