Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee
Born	Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee 21 2, 1961
Birthplace	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist
Known for	Co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL); Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2019)
Education	Harvard University (PhD)
Spouse(s)	Arundhati Tuli Banerjee (div. 2014) Esther Duflo (m. 2015)
Children	3
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2019) Infosys Prize (2009) Guggenheim Fellowship
Website	[http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/banerjee/ Official site]

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-American economist who served as the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is the co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global research center dedicated to reducing poverty through evidence-based policy. In 2019, Banerjee was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." Banerjee and Duflo became the sixth married couple to jointly win a Nobel or Nobel Memorial Prize. Born in Mumbai and educated at Presidency College in Kolkata, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and Harvard University, Banerjee has spent the bulk of his career reshaping the field of development economics through the use of randomized controlled trials. A fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is ranked by Research Papers in Economics among the top 75 researchers worldwide by total research output. In October 2025, Banerjee and Duflo announced they would leave MIT to establish a new center for development economics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Early Life

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee was born on 21 February 1961 in Mumbai (then Bombay), Maharashtra, India. He grew up in an academic household; his parents were both scholars associated with prominent Indian universities. His father, Dipak Banerjee, was a professor of economics at Presidency College in Kolkata, and his mother, Nirmala Banerjee, was a professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. This environment steeped in the social sciences shaped Banerjee's intellectual trajectory from an early age, exposing him to debates about economic development and inequality in India.

Banerjee spent his formative years in Kolkata (then Calcutta), one of India's major intellectual and cultural centers. The city's tradition of rigorous academic inquiry, particularly at institutions like Presidency College and the University of Calcutta, provided a fertile ground for his early education. Kolkata during this period was a city grappling with significant economic challenges — widespread poverty, rapid urbanization, and political upheaval — and these conditions left an indelible imprint on Banerjee's later work in development economics.

Education

Banerjee completed his undergraduate studies at Presidency College in Kolkata, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. He then moved to New Delhi to attend Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), one of India's premier research universities, where he obtained a Master of Arts degree in economics.

For his doctoral studies, Banerjee moved to the United States and enrolled at Harvard University. He completed his PhD in economics in 1988 with a dissertation titled "Essays on Information Economics." His doctoral advisors were Eric Maskin, Andreu Mas-Colell, and Jerry Green — three prominent figures in economic theory. Maskin would himself go on to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2007 for his work on mechanism design theory. The training Banerjee received at Harvard in information economics and economic theory provided the theoretical foundation upon which he would build his later empirical work in development economics.

Career

Early Academic Career (1988–1993)

After completing his doctorate at Harvard, Banerjee began his academic career at Princeton University, where he served on the economics faculty from 1988 to 1992. During this period, he developed his research program in development economics and information economics, publishing theoretical work that examined how information asymmetries affected economic outcomes in developing countries.

In 1992, Banerjee moved to Harvard University, where he held a faculty position for one year before joining MIT in 1993. In 1994, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship, an award given annually to early-career researchers recognized for having the "potential to revolutionize their fields." This early recognition signaled the significance of his emerging research agenda, which combined rigorous economic theory with an increasing focus on empirical methods for understanding poverty.

MIT and the Founding of J-PAL

Banerjee joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993 and would remain on its faculty for more than three decades, eventually holding the title of Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics. It was at MIT that Banerjee would carry out the work that would define his career and transform the field of development economics.

In 2003, Banerjee co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, together with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan. J-PAL was established as a global research center with the explicit mission of reducing poverty by ensuring that policy was informed by scientific evidence. The lab pioneered the application of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) — a methodology borrowed from medicine — to evaluate the effectiveness of social programs and policy interventions in developing countries.

Under Banerjee's co-directorship, J-PAL grew into one of the most influential institutions in development economics. The lab coordinated hundreds of randomized evaluations across dozens of countries, testing interventions related to education, health, microfinance, governance, and agriculture. As profiled by the International Monetary Fund, Banerjee and Duflo "reinvented development economics" through their work at J-PAL, shifting the discipline from one that relied heavily on macroeconomic models and cross-country comparisons to one grounded in rigorous experimental evidence about what works to help the poor.

The experimental approach championed by Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer represented a significant methodological shift. Rather than attempting to answer large, abstract questions about the causes of poverty at the national level, their work broke the problem into smaller, more tractable components. They designed experiments to test specific interventions — such as whether providing free bed nets or charging a small fee led to higher usage rates for malaria prevention, or whether additional teachers or incentive pay produced better educational outcomes. This granular approach allowed policymakers to understand not just whether a program worked, but why it worked and for whom.

Research Contributions

Banerjee's research contributions span a wide range of topics within development economics, including the economics of education, health, financial institutions, and governance. His work has consistently addressed questions about the economic lives of the poor — how they make decisions, what constraints they face, and what kinds of interventions can meaningfully improve their circumstances.

A central thread in Banerjee's research is the study of how poverty itself creates traps from which individuals and communities struggle to escape. His theoretical and empirical work has examined the mechanisms through which low initial endowments — whether of wealth, health, or education — can perpetuate disadvantage across generations. This "poverty trap" framework informed many of the experimental interventions designed and evaluated by J-PAL.

Banerjee also contributed to the study of microfinance, examining both its potential and its limitations as a tool for poverty alleviation. His randomized evaluations of microcredit programs helped temper the initial optimism surrounding microfinance by showing that, while it provided useful financial services to the poor, it did not reliably lead to transformative increases in income or business growth.

In the area of governance and public service delivery, Banerjee's research examined why public institutions in developing countries often fail to serve the poor effectively and what can be done to improve performance. His studies investigated topics such as teacher absenteeism, the effectiveness of monitoring mechanisms, and the design of incentive systems for public sector workers.

His 2011 book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, co-authored with Esther Duflo, synthesized many of these research findings for a general audience. The book received the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011. The work argued against one-size-fits-all approaches to development and in favor of careful, evidence-based experimentation.

In 2019, Banerjee and Duflo published Good Economics for Hard Times, which applied their evidence-based approach to a broader set of economic and political challenges, including immigration, inequality, trade, and climate change.

In 2025, Banerjee published a book focused on the intersection of food, economics, and society. Titled Cooking to Save Your Life, the book was presented at a World Bank event organized by the Governance Global Department.

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2019)

On 14 October 2019, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer had been awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." The prize recognized their work over two decades in transforming development economics through the use of field experiments.

The Nobel committee noted that the laureates' research had "dramatically improved our ability to fight poverty in practice." By breaking down the broad question of poverty into smaller, experimentally testable questions — about education, health care, access to credit, and the adoption of new technologies — Banerjee and his co-laureates had developed a methodology that yielded actionable insights for policymakers and development practitioners around the world.

Banerjee and Duflo, who are married, became the sixth couple to jointly win a Nobel Prize. At the time of the award, Banerjee was 58 years old. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences carried with it a monetary award of 9 million Swedish kronor, shared among the three laureates.

Policy Advisory Work

Beyond his academic research, Banerjee has been involved in policy advising at national and international levels. He served on the United Nations Secretary-General's High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which was tasked with providing recommendations for the global development framework that would succeed the Millennium Development Goals.

Banerjee has also commented extensively on Indian economic policy. In a 2019 interview with Business Standard, he shared his views on government employment policies, suggesting reforms to make government jobs less insulated and more performance-oriented.

In a 2025 interview on the sidelines of the Kerala Literature Festival, Banerjee expressed concern about the concept of "jobless growth," stating that an obsession with GDP growth "means almost nothing" if it does not translate into meaningful improvements in employment and living standards for ordinary people.

In February 2025, Banerjee participated in a newsmaker briefing organized by American Community Media and the South Asian Literary Association, in which he called for a "rehaul of global aid," arguing that existing frameworks for international development assistance required fundamental reform.

Move to the University of Zurich (2025)

In October 2025, the University of Zurich announced that Banerjee and Duflo would join its faculty to establish a new center for development economics. The move was reported as a significant departure from MIT, where both had spent decades, and was characterized by multiple media outlets as part of a broader trend of academic talent leaving the United States. Le Monde and the Times of India both reported on the decision, with the Times of India describing it as a "global brain drain for the US." The University of Zurich appointment was reported to begin in 2026.

Doctoral Students

Throughout his career at MIT, Banerjee supervised numerous doctoral students who went on to establish significant careers of their own. His PhD students include Esther Duflo, who became his co-laureate and spouse; Dean Karlan, a prominent development economist and founder of Innovations for Poverty Action; Benjamin Jones; Nancy Qian; Maitreesh Ghatak; and Asim Khwaja, among others.

Personal Life

Banerjee was previously married to Arundhati Tuli Banerjee, a lecturer at MIT's Global Studies and Languages department. They divorced in 2014. In 2015, Banerjee married Esther Duflo, his longtime research collaborator and fellow MIT economist. Duflo, who had been Banerjee's doctoral student, became his co-author on numerous influential papers and books, and the two co-directed J-PAL together. In 2012, the couple had a daughter. Banerjee has three children in total.

Banerjee holds American citizenship. He has maintained connections to India throughout his career, frequently commenting on Indian economic policy and participating in cultural and literary events in the country. In 2025, he appeared at the Jaipur Literature Festival and the Kerala Literature Festival.

Recognition

Banerjee has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career. In 1994, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship, recognizing him as an early-career researcher with the potential to make significant contributions to his field. He subsequently received a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

In 2009, Banerjee was awarded the Infosys Prize in Social Sciences, given by the Infosys Science Foundation to recognize outstanding contributions by researchers working in India or of Indian origin. The prize committee cited his contributions to development economics and his experimental approach to understanding poverty.

The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award was given in 2011 to Poor Economics, co-authored with Esther Duflo. The Gerald Loeb Award, a major honor in American business journalism, was also awarded for the book's contribution to public understanding of economics.

The 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences represented the culmination of Banerjee's contributions to the field. He shared the prize equally with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer.

In 2022, Banerjee received the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where he has been a research associate since 2006.

Legacy

Banerjee's most enduring contribution to economics lies in the methodological transformation he helped bring about in development economics. Together with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, he established randomized controlled trials as a central tool for evaluating development interventions, fundamentally altering how governments, international organizations, and NGOs approach poverty alleviation. The work of J-PAL under Banerjee's co-directorship has informed policy decisions affecting hundreds of millions of people in developing countries.

The institutional legacy of J-PAL extends beyond any single study or finding. By creating a network of affiliated researchers conducting rigorous evaluations around the world, Banerjee helped establish an infrastructure for evidence-based policymaking in development that did not previously exist on such a scale. J-PAL's model has been emulated by other research organizations and has influenced funding agencies to demand more rigorous evidence of program effectiveness.

As a teacher and mentor, Banerjee shaped the careers of a generation of development economists. His doctoral students have gone on to hold positions at leading universities and research institutions, extending the influence of his approach to economic research. The intellectual community that formed around J-PAL and Banerjee's research group at MIT became one of the most productive clusters in modern economics.

Banerjee's public engagement — through books, interviews, and policy advising — has also contributed to a broader public understanding of the complexity of poverty and the importance of evidence in addressing it. His advocacy for reforming global aid structures and his critiques of simplistic growth-focused narratives have entered mainstream policy discussions, as evidenced by his continued engagement with institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the United Nations.

His 2025 decision to move to the University of Zurich, alongside Duflo, signaled a new phase in his career and was interpreted by commentators as reflecting broader shifts in the global academic landscape.