Contents
Esther Duflo
Testing anti-poverty programmes through field experiments in real communities.
J-PAL · Poor Economics
- Born
- 25 October 1972
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
More people
Esther Duflo
Esther Duflo is a French-American economist and co-founder of J-PAL. She shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer.
Early life
Paris upbringing
Grew up with an academic father and a physician mother.
History and economics
Studied at the École normale supérieure before completing an economics doctorate at MIT in 1999.
Career
- 1999
Academic career
Joined MIT’s economics faculty after her doctorate.
- 2003
J-PAL
Co-founded the Poverty Action Lab with Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan.
- 2011
Writing for readers
Co-authored Poor Economics, bringing development research to a wider audience.
- 2019
Economics prize
Became the youngest recipient of the economics prize at the time of her award.
Contributions
Field evaluations
Studied practical questions in education, health and social policy.
Poor Economics
Explored how evidence can challenge assumptions about people living in poverty.
Good Economics for Hard Times
Examined major economic debates with Banerjee.
Beyond economics
Research and family
Married her collaborator Abhijit Banerjee in 2015; they have two children.
Policy communication
Has argued for careful testing and adjustment of programmes rather than relying on sweeping solutions.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Nobel Prize biography and award ↗Photo: US Embassy Sweden. CC BY 2.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
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