Esther Duflo is a French-American economist, who is the Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health, and policy evaluation. She has been a driving force in advancing field experiments as an important methodology to discover causal relationships in economics. She has co-authored a book with Abhijit Banerjee called “Good Economics for Hard Times” Juggernaut Books, which will be out in October 2019. To know more about her, keep reading below.
Where is Esther Duflo born?
Recalling her early life, Esther was born in Paris, France. She is French by nationality and belongs to white ethnicity. Her father Michel Duflo was a mathematics professor and her mother was a doctor. During her childhood, her mother often participated in medical humanitarian projects.
Talking about her education, She finished her degree in history and economics at École Normale Supérieure in 1994, and received a master’s degree from DELTA, now the Paris School of Economics, jointly with the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) of the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres(PSL) and the École Normale Supérieure in 1995. Subsequently, she completed a Ph.D. in economics at MIT in 1999, under the joint supervision of Abhijit Banerjee and Joshua Angrist.
What is the profession of Esther Duflo?
- Upon completing her Ph.D., Esther was appointed an assistant professor of economics at MIT and has been at MIT ever since, aside from leave at Princeton University in 2001–2002. She was promoted to associate professor (with tenure) in 2002, at 29, making her among the youngest faculty member to be awarded tenure.
- Duflo and Banerjee have taken a special interest in India since 1997. In 2003, she conducted a trial experiment on teacher absenteeism in 120 schools run by a non-profit group. By encouraging the teachers to photograph themselves with their students each day, she was able to reduce their absenteeism.
- In 2003, she co-founded the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, which has since conducted over 200 empirical development experiments and trained development practitioners to run randomized controlled trials. The lab has branches in Chennai, India and at the Paris School of Economics.
- Focused on assessing developments addressing social welfare, in 2008 it received the Frontier of Knowledge award for development cooperation.
- In 2006, together with several colleagues, Duflo conducted another experiment in India. It showed that taped speeches by women were more readily accepted in villages that had experienced women leaders. Duflo became increasingly convinced that communities supporting women candidates could expect economic benefits but experienced difficulty in convincing her peers.
- She was the founding editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and is a co-editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Development Economics. Also, she is a member of the editorial committee of the Annual Review of Economics and a member of the Human Capital Research Programme within the International Growth Centre.
- On 21 May 2009, she was selected as the first recipient of the Calvó-Armengol International Prize, which she finally received on 4 June 2010. That is awarded every two years to a top young researcher in economics or the social sciences for contributions to the theory and comprehension of the mechanisms of social interaction.
- She was the main speaker at the first Bocconi Lecture of Bocconi University in 2010, followed in 2011 by Caroline Hoxby. In the same year, Foreign Policy again named her to its list of top 100 global thinkers. The Economist lists Duflo as one of the top 8 young economists in the world. She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in April 2011.
- In April 2011, she released her book Poor Economics, co-authored with Banerjee. It documents their 15 years of experience in conducting randomized control trials to alleviate poverty. The book has received very positive acclaim. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen called it “a marvelously insightful book by the two outstanding researchers on the real nature of poverty.
- In 2012, Duflo was picked by Foreign Policy magazine as one of its Top 100 Global Thinkers. She shared the 2012 Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Business Book for Poor Economics with co-author Abhijit Banerjee.
- Duflo shared the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. She is the youngest person and the second woman to win this award.
Who is Esther Duflo married to?
Reflecting on her personal life, Esther was married to MIT professor Abhijit Banerjee. The couple proud to be the parents of two children. The information about her personal life is yet to disclosed but as of 2019, she seems to be happy with their children.
How much net worth does Esther Duflo own?
As a humanitarian or activist, Esther help a lot of people by his skill and hardworking. For this work, she was honored as well. But how much she earned from her profession, it is yet to be disclosed.
How tall is Esther Duflo?
Observing her body physics, Esther has a decent height and weight. She seems to be healthy and beautiful. As of now, we have a lack of information about her body statistics. In the case we update, we will let you know.
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