Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee jointly won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 2019, along with his wife, Esther Dufflo, and Michael Kremer, for his work on combating global poverty (see announcement). Prof. Banerjee is currently Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics in MIT, and co-founder of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, along with Esther Dufflo. While his initial work on information economics established his reputation, Prof. Banerjee shot into fame and controversy with his application of biological methods in social science research, leading to the development of Randomized Control Trial (RCT) method. This method has arguably become the gold standard in evaluating the impact of intervention strategies in health, education, employment, and allied areas, and is widely used in impact evaluation studies by the “randomistas”. The publication of his book “Poor Economics” in 2011, outlining a strategy to combat global poverty based on RCT and incorporating feedback from the poor, set the seal on his reputation, and it was only a matter of time before he would win the Nobel prize.

Prof. Banerjee has a long association with Presidency University, erstwhile Presidency College. His father was the legendary Dipak Banerjee who, as Head and Professor of the Economics Department, produced one great economist after another. Nirmala Banerjee, his mother, was Professor in Center for Studies in Social Sciences, known for her work on women workers in the informal sector. Prof. Banerjee himself completed his Major in Economics in Presidency College (1978 to 1981); subsequently, he completed his Masters in JNU, before moving to Harvard University for his doctoral research.

In recent years, Prof. Banerjee has been associated with his alma mater as a member of the Mentor group; he has also been a regular visitor to the Economics Department, where he organises the Dipak Banerjee Memorial Lecture series. Three Nobel Laureates - Amartya Sen, Joseph Siglitz, and Jean Tirole - have given this lecture. Esther Dufflo has also visited the Department earlier, and had delivered the Dipak Banerjee Memorial Lecture in 2018. Prof. Banerjee, himself, had given the Nirmal Kanti Majumdar Endowment lecture in 2017.