Anti-Poverty Pioneer Becomes The Second Woman in History to Win the Nobel Prize in Economics

“Dr. Esther Duflo has just become the second woman in history and the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize in Economics! The 46-year-old MIT professor shares the prize with her husband, Dr. Abhijit Banerjee, and colleague Dr. Michael Kremer; together they have helped millions of people around the world with their research to develop practical interventions to alleviating global poverty. “In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in today’s prize announcement. After learning of her Nobel win, Duflo said she was “humbled” and, in light of how underrepresented women are in the field of economics, she hopes that it will “inspire many, many other women to continue working and many other men to give them the respect that they deserve like every single human being.”

Born and raised in Paris, France, Duflo planned to study history as an undergraduate but several research positions showed her that “economics had potential as a lever of action in the world.” The ability to do “things that mattered” appealed to her and, she says, “I came to economics the day I realized there was something called development economics. I didn’t want to do macro, and I didn’t want to do finance.” Duflo went on to earn a master’s degree in economics from the Paris School of Economics and a PhD in economics at MIT, where she is currently a Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics.”