“Poverty is not just a lack of money; it is not having the capability to realize one’s full potential as a human being.”

Abhijit Banerjee, an Indian-American, is an acknowledged professor at MIT, who has won the prestigious Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, in 2019 for helping develop an innovative experimental approach to reducing global poverty, along with Esther Duflo and Micheal Kremer. Banerjee was born in Mumbai, India in 1961, in a Bengali household in 2015. Today, he is a renowned economist with many laurels to his credit. He was schooled at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1988.

Banerjee played a crucial role in identifying contributors to poverty and designing apt solutions through a series of field experiments, which were done in across low- and middle-income regions across the globe.

The three economists collaborated together for developing simple solutions that combat poverty. He was also a Research Associate for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development. Besides, he is also a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. In 2003, he founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in Massachusetts.

“The point is simple: talking about the problems of the world without talking about some accessible solutions is the way to paralysis rather than progress.”

His significant achievements include:

• Infosys Prize in 2009
• Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in 2011
• Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 global thinkers
• Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, in 2019 for Economic Sciences

Furthermore, he has written books including Poor Economics, Good Economics for Hard Times, Cooking to Save Your Life, Poor Economics, and Making Aid Work. Besides, he is also a contributor to Hindustan Times and directed various documentaries. Furthermore, he is known to be an excellent cook and patron of Hindustani classical music.

Today, Banerjee’s net worth is expected to be around USD 1.5 million, and is associated with various organizations that work for the downtrodden parts of society. Along with being a director of J-PAL, he is also the trustee of Save the Children USA.

“Economics is too important to be left to economists.”