Born in India, but currently holding American citizenship, Abhijit Banerjee has won the Nobel Prize for economics. Here are 10 facts about the Nobel laureate, who has made India proud.
Indian origin economist Abhijit Banerjee has won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2019. He won the prize along with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer.
Here are 10 facts about the economist, who has made India proud.
1) Abhijit Banerjee was born on February 21, 1961 in Mumbai.
Abhijit Banerjee was born into a family of economists. His mother Nirmala Banerjee was a professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, in Calcutta, and father Dipak Banerjee was a professor and the head of the department of economics at Presidency College.
2) He studied at South Point School and completed graduation from Presidency College in Kolkata. He pursued BS degree and graduated in economics in 1981. He completed his MA in economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and passed out in 1983.
3) He pursued PhD in economics at Harvard in 1988. He did his doctoral thesis on 'Essays in Information Economics'.
4) He currently holds American citizenship and is known as American economist. He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT
5) He won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019
Abhijith along with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the prestigious Nobel Prize for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.
6) This award was not created by the Alfred Nobel, but it is considered to be part of the Nobel stable of awards. The winners will get the $ 9 million Swedish crown (around Rs 6.5 crore) economics prize. Thus Abhijit will get one third of the prize money as he has to share it with his wife Esther Duflo and co-researcher Michael Kremer.
7) On the personal front, Abhijit is married to Arundhati Tuli Banerjee, who was a lecturer of literature at MIT. They have one son - Kabir Banerjee - born in 1991. But Kabir died in March, 2016. Later, Abhijit and Arundhati divorced.
8) Abhijit has a child with co-researcher Esther Duflo. Abhijit and Esther got married in 2015. Esther has also won the Nobel Prize along with Abhijith.
9) In 2012, Abhijit shared the Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Business Book with co-author Esther Duflo for their book Poor Economics; he was named by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to a panel of experts in 2013.
10) Abhijit is also a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. It is a research affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action.
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