<p>As Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee has been awarded Nobel Prize in economics for 2019, it seemed like a deja-vu for many Indians.</p>.<p>Two decades earlier, yet another Bengali Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for a similar study.</p>.<p>While Sen basically threw light on the core problem of poverty, Banerjee has been focusing on the solutions to global poverty.</p>.<p>The connections don’t end just here: Banerjee was the first recipient of the Infosys Prize for Social Science. And guess what? It was Sen, who was chairing the jury of the Infosys awards back then.</p>.<p>On the other hand, Banerjee's wife Esther Duflo, a developmental economist who draws her inspiration from Sen, was also awarded the Infosys Prize in 2014.</p>.<p>The dual Nobel Prize just adds on to validation of the Infosys Prize— a coveted award by the Bengaluru-based IT major Infosys.</p>.<p>Yet another recipient of the award has been Reserve Bank’s most high-profile governor Raghuram Rajan.</p>.<p>Currently, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Banerjee studied at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University.</p>.<p>He wrote his doctoral thesis on ‘Essays in Information Economics’ and received his doctorate in 1988.</p>.<p>He is the author of four books including Poor Economics (with Duflo) that has won the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year.</p>.<p>He has also co-directed two documentary films: ‘The Magnificent Journey: Times and Tales of Democracy (co-directed with Ranu Ghosh) in 2019 and ‘The Name of the Disease’ in 2006.</p>.<p>Banerjee founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan in 2003.</p>
<p>As Indian-American economist Abhijit Banerjee has been awarded Nobel Prize in economics for 2019, it seemed like a deja-vu for many Indians.</p>.<p>Two decades earlier, yet another Bengali Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize for a similar study.</p>.<p>While Sen basically threw light on the core problem of poverty, Banerjee has been focusing on the solutions to global poverty.</p>.<p>The connections don’t end just here: Banerjee was the first recipient of the Infosys Prize for Social Science. And guess what? It was Sen, who was chairing the jury of the Infosys awards back then.</p>.<p>On the other hand, Banerjee's wife Esther Duflo, a developmental economist who draws her inspiration from Sen, was also awarded the Infosys Prize in 2014.</p>.<p>The dual Nobel Prize just adds on to validation of the Infosys Prize— a coveted award by the Bengaluru-based IT major Infosys.</p>.<p>Yet another recipient of the award has been Reserve Bank’s most high-profile governor Raghuram Rajan.</p>.<p>Currently, the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Banerjee studied at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University.</p>.<p>He wrote his doctoral thesis on ‘Essays in Information Economics’ and received his doctorate in 1988.</p>.<p>He is the author of four books including Poor Economics (with Duflo) that has won the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year.</p>.<p>He has also co-directed two documentary films: ‘The Magnificent Journey: Times and Tales of Democracy (co-directed with Ranu Ghosh) in 2019 and ‘The Name of the Disease’ in 2006.</p>.<p>Banerjee founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan in 2003.</p>