Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Banerjee
Born	Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee 21 2, 1961
Birthplace	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Nationality	American
Occupation	Economist
Known for	Co-founding the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL); experimental approach to alleviating global poverty
Education	Harvard University (PhD)
Spouse(s)	Template:Plainlist
Children	3
Awards	Template:Plainlist
Website	[http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/banerjee/ Official site]

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (born 21 February 1961) is an Indian-born American economist who has spent much of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he held the position of Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics. He is a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a global research center based at MIT that promotes the use of rigorous scientific evidence — particularly randomized controlled trials — to inform strategies for poverty alleviation around the world. 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. 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, Banerjee is among the most productive development economists in the world, ranking in the top 75 researchers by total research output according to Research Papers in Economics. In October 2025, it was announced that Banerjee and Duflo would leave MIT to join the University of Zurich, where they plan to establish a new center focused on development economics.

Early Life

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee was born on 21 February 1961 in Mumbai (then Bombay), in the state of Maharashtra, India. He grew up in an academic household; his parents were both scholars affiliated with prominent Indian institutions. His father, Dipak Banerjee, was a professor of economics at Presidency College, Kolkata, and his mother, Nirmala Banerjee, was a professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.

Growing up in Kolkata (then Calcutta), Banerjee was exposed to intellectual discussions about economics and social issues from a young age. The city of Kolkata, with its visible inequalities and rich tradition of political and academic discourse, provided a formative backdrop for his later interest in poverty and development economics. His early experiences in India — observing the complexities of economic deprivation and the shortcomings of various development interventions — would profoundly shape the direction of his academic career.

Banerjee pursued his undergraduate education at Presidency College, Kolkata, one of India's most prestigious institutions of higher learning, particularly noted for its tradition in the social sciences and economics. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Presidency College, continuing a family tradition of academic engagement at the institution where his father had also taught.

Education

After completing his undergraduate studies at Presidency College in Kolkata, Banerjee went on to pursue a Master of Arts degree at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, one of India's leading research universities known for its strong programs in the social sciences. His time at JNU further honed his analytical skills and deepened his engagement with questions of economic development and inequality.

Banerjee subsequently moved to the United States for his doctoral studies, enrolling at Harvard University. At Harvard, he worked under the supervision of three distinguished economists: Eric Maskin, Andreu Mas-Colell, and Jerry Green. His doctoral dissertation, titled "Essays on Information Economics," was completed in 1988. The dissertation explored questions at the intersection of information theory and economic behavior, themes that would continue to inform his research in subsequent years. Maskin, one of his doctoral advisors, would himself go on to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2007 for his work on mechanism design theory.

Career

Early Academic Positions (1988–1993)

Upon completing his PhD at Harvard in 1988, Banerjee began his academic career at Princeton University, where he served as an assistant professor of economics from 1988 to 1992. During this period, he began developing his research agenda in development economics, information economics, and economic theory, publishing in leading academic journals and establishing his reputation as a rigorous and innovative scholar.

In 1992, Banerjee moved to Harvard University, where he served on the faculty for one year before accepting a position at MIT. In 1994, shortly after his arrival at MIT, Banerjee received a Sloan Research Fellowship, an award given annually to early-career researchers deemed to have "the potential to revolutionize their fields."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993–2025)

Banerjee joined the faculty of the Department of Economics at MIT in 1993 and would remain there for over three decades, eventually becoming the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics. MIT provided the institutional base for much of his most influential work, and it was there that he developed his signature approach to studying poverty through rigorous field experiments.

At MIT, Banerjee also became affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an association he maintained from 2006 onward. He served as a research associate at NBER, contributing to its programs in development economics and related fields.

Founding of J-PAL

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 with the mission of reducing poverty by ensuring that policy decisions are informed by scientific evidence. The lab pioneered the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in development economics — an approach that adapts methodologies from clinical medicine to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs and policies in the field.

Under Banerjee's co-directorship, J-PAL grew into a major global research network, with offices and affiliated researchers across multiple continents. The lab has conducted hundreds of randomized evaluations in countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, covering areas such as education, health, governance, agriculture, financial inclusion, and labor markets.

An article profiling J-PAL published by the International Monetary Fund described how Banerjee and Duflo "reinvented development economics" through their insistence on experimental rigor and evidence-based policymaking. J-PAL's model of partnering with governments and nongovernmental organizations to test interventions before scaling them up has influenced development practice worldwide and has been credited with improving the effectiveness of billions of dollars in anti-poverty spending.

Research Contributions

Banerjee's research has spanned a wide range of topics within development economics and related fields, including the economics of poverty, information economics, microfinance, education, health, and governance. His work is characterized by a commitment to understanding the specific constraints and incentive structures faced by people living in poverty, and by the use of empirical methods — particularly field experiments — to test theories and evaluate interventions.

One of Banerjee's central contributions has been the development and popularization of the experimental approach to development economics. Rather than relying solely on macroeconomic models or observational data, Banerjee and his collaborators championed the use of randomized controlled trials to determine which development programs actually work. This approach, which earned him the Nobel Prize, has been applied to evaluate interventions across dozens of countries and policy domains.

Banerjee has also contributed important theoretical work on topics such as herd behavior in economics, the functioning of credit markets in developing countries, and the role of information in economic decision-making — themes rooted in his doctoral research on information economics.

He is the co-author, with Esther Duflo, of Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty (2011), which presented findings from years of field experiments in an accessible format and argued for a more evidence-based and granular approach to addressing poverty. The book received widespread attention and won the Gerald Loeb Award for Business Book in 2012. He later co-authored Good Economics for Hard Times (2019) with Duflo, which addressed a broader set of economic and political challenges facing the world, including immigration, trade, inequality, and climate change.

In 2025, Banerjee presented his book on food, economics, and society — titled Chhaunk — at an event hosted by the World Bank's Governance Global Department.

Doctoral Supervision

Throughout his career at MIT, Banerjee mentored a generation of development economists who have themselves become prominent scholars. Among his doctoral students are Esther Duflo (who became his wife and Nobel co-laureate), Dean Karlan, Benjamin Jones, Nancy Qian, Maitreesh Ghatak, and Asim Khwaja. Many of his former students have gone on to hold faculty positions at leading universities and to direct their own influential research programs.

Advisory Roles

Beyond his academic work, Banerjee has served in advisory capacities for international organizations. He was a member of the United Nations Secretary-General's High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which provided recommendations on the global development framework that succeeded the Millennium Development Goals.

In India, Banerjee has been a commentator on economic policy issues. In 2019, he publicly discussed the Indian government's reservation policies, suggesting reforms to government employment practices.

Views on Economic Growth

In an interview at the Kerala Literature Festival in early 2026, Banerjee expressed skepticism about the prevailing emphasis on economic growth as a primary indicator of development, stating that the "obsession with growth means almost nothing" if it fails to translate into meaningful improvements in people's lives, particularly in terms of employment and living standards. He raised concerns about "jobless growth" and the limitations of aggregate economic indicators in capturing the well-being of populations.

In a special media briefing hosted by American Community Media and the South Asian Literary Association in February 2026, Banerjee called for a "rehaul of global aid," arguing that existing structures of international development assistance needed significant restructuring to be more effective.

Move to the University of Zurich (2026)

In October 2025, it was announced that Banerjee and Duflo would leave MIT to join the University of Zurich, where they planned to establish a new center dedicated to development economics research. The move drew significant attention, with media outlets describing it as part of a broader "brain drain" from American universities. Reporting by Le Monde confirmed that the University of Zurich announced the appointments, noting the couple's international reputation in development economics. Inside Higher Ed reported that the departure reflected broader concerns among some academics about the research environment in the United States.

Personal Life

Banerjee was first married to Arundhati Tuli Banerjee, a lecturer at MIT's Global Studies and Languages department. The couple divorced in 2014. In 2015, Banerjee married Esther Duflo, who had been his doctoral student at MIT before becoming his colleague and research collaborator. Duflo is a Franco-American economist who also holds a professorship at MIT. The birth of their daughter was announced publicly in 2012. Banerjee has three children in total.

When Banerjee and Duflo jointly received the Nobel Prize in 2019, they became the sixth married couple to share a Nobel or Nobel Memorial Prize. Duflo, at 46, was also the youngest person and only the second woman to receive the Nobel in economics at that time.

Banerjee holds American citizenship. He has maintained connections to India throughout his career, frequently commenting on Indian economic policy and engaging with Indian academic and cultural institutions. In 2025, he appeared at the Jaipur Literature Festival, one of India's largest literary and cultural events.

Recognition

Banerjee has received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. His most significant recognition came in 2019, when he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited their "experimental approach to alleviating global poverty" as the basis for the award. The Nobel committee noted that the laureates' research had "dramatically improved our ability to fight poverty in practice."

Prior to the Nobel Prize, Banerjee received several other notable honors. In 1994, he was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, given to early-career researchers in recognition of their exceptional potential. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship, supporting advanced research in the sciences and humanities. In 2009, he was awarded the Infosys Prize in Social Sciences, recognizing his contributions to the field of development economics.

In 2012, Banerjee and Duflo's book Poor Economics won the Gerald Loeb Award for Business Book, one of the most recognized prizes in business and financial journalism and writing. In 2022, Banerjee received a Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement.

Banerjee is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Econometric Society. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. According to Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), he ranks among the top 75 economists globally by total research output.

Legacy

Banerjee's influence on the field of development economics has been substantial. Together with Esther Duflo and other collaborators, he played a central role in shifting the methodology of development economics toward empirical rigor and experimental evidence. The "randomista" movement — the widespread adoption of randomized controlled trials as a tool for evaluating development interventions — is closely associated with Banerjee and the work of J-PAL. This approach has influenced not only academic research but also the practices of governments, international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations around the world.

J-PAL, the research center Banerjee co-founded, has grown into one of the most influential institutions in global development research, with a network of over 200 affiliated professors conducting randomized evaluations across dozens of countries. The lab's policy work has directly informed government programs affecting millions of people, particularly in areas such as education, healthcare delivery, and social protection.

As a doctoral supervisor, Banerjee has shaped the careers of numerous economists who have themselves become leaders in the field. His students — including Esther Duflo, Dean Karlan, Nancy Qian, Maitreesh Ghatak, and Asim Khwaja — occupy positions at major research universities and continue to extend the experimental approach he helped pioneer.

Banerjee's books, particularly Poor Economics and Good Economics for Hard Times, have brought the insights of development economics to broad public audiences, helping to shift popular discourse about poverty away from ideological generalizations and toward evidence-based analysis. His 2025 book Chhaunk continued this tradition of public engagement, exploring the connections between food, economics, and society.

His decision to move to the University of Zurich in 2026, alongside Duflo, was interpreted by some observers as part of a larger trend of prominent academics relocating from the United States to European institutions, raising questions about the future of American leadership in academic research.