Esther Duflo facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Esther Duflo
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Duflo in 2009
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| Born | 25 October 1972 |
| Spouse(s) | Abhijit Banerjee |
| Institutions |
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| Field | Development economics |
| Doctoral advisor |
Abhijit Banerjee • Joshua Angrist |
| Doctoral students |
Emily Breza • Dean Karlan • Rachael Meager • Vincent Pons |
| Contributions | Randomized controlled trials |
| Awards |
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| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
Esther Duflo is a French-American economist. She was born on October 25, 1972. She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2019, she won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. She shared the award with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer. They won for their new way of trying to reduce poverty around the world.
Duflo also helped start and leads the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). This research center at MIT uses special experiments to test ideas for helping people. By 2020, programs tested by J-PAL researchers had helped over 400 million people. Since 2024, Duflo has also been the president of the Paris School of Economics.
Her research looks at how people in developing countries make choices. She studies topics like education, health, and how families behave. She also looks at how people manage their money and how gender affects economic choices.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Esther Duflo was born in Paris, France, on October 25, 1972. Her father was a math professor. Her mother was a doctor who often helped children affected by war. Esther grew up in a suburb of Paris called Asnières. She finished high school in 1990.
She then went to the École normale supérieure in Paris. She studied history and economics there. In 1993-1994, she worked in Moscow, Russia. She was a French teaching assistant and a research assistant at the Central Bank of Russia. She also helped an American economist named Jeffrey Sachs. He was advising the Russian government after the Soviet Union ended. This experience made her realize that economics could help solve real-world problems.
Duflo finished her master's degree in 1995. She then went to MIT in the United States for her PhD in economics. Her first class in development economics was taught by Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer. She later shared the Nobel Prize with them. She earned her PhD in 1999. Her research looked at how education affects how much money people earn later in life. She studied a big school building program in Indonesia.
Career and Research
After getting her PhD, Duflo became a professor at MIT in 1999. She quickly became one of the youngest professors to get tenure there. This means she earned a permanent teaching position.
In 2003, Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, and Sendhil Mullainathan started the Poverty Action Lab. This lab uses special experiments called randomized controlled trials. These experiments help them test if different programs actually work to fight poverty. The lab later became the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
J-PAL opened its first office in India in 2007. Since then, it has opened offices in many other countries. As of 2024, J-PAL works with 900 researchers at 97 universities worldwide.
Studying Education
Duflo's early research looked at a school building program in Indonesia. She found that children who had more schools nearby got more education. They also earned more money when they grew up. This showed that more schooling can lead to better earnings.
She also studied programs to improve learning in Indian schools. One study found that special tutoring programs helped students learn much more. This was more effective than just giving out textbooks. This research led to a program called "Teaching at the Right Level." It helps students learn by giving them lessons that match their current skill level.
Understanding Gender Roles
Duflo also studied how gender affects how money is used in families. She looked at a program in South Africa that gave more money to elderly people. She found that when older women in a household received more money, young girls in that house became healthier. This suggests that girls benefit when women control more of the family's money.
Microfinance Research
Duflo also studied microfinance. This is when small loans are given to people who don't have much money. Many people thought microfinance was a great way to end poverty. Duflo and her team did an experiment in India. They found that microfinance helped some people start businesses. But it didn't always lead to a big increase in how much families spent overall. This research helped people understand that microfinance might not be a magic solution for poverty.
Personal Life
Esther Duflo is married to Abhijit Banerjee, who is also a professor at MIT. They have two children. Banerjee was one of her PhD advisors when she was a student at MIT.
Books and Publications
In 2011, Duflo and Banerjee wrote a book called Poor Economics. It talks about their 15 years of research on fighting poverty. Many people praised the book. In 2019, they wrote another book, Good Economics for Hard Times. This book looks at solutions for big problems like inequality and climate change.
Awards and Recognition
Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Esther Duflo won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2019. She shared it with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer. They won for their new way of using experiments to fight poverty. Duflo was 46 years old, making her the youngest person to win this award. She was also only the second woman to receive it.
The Nobel committee said that their experimental methods now lead the way in development economics. They found that simply adding more school days or textbooks didn't always help students learn. Instead, they showed that schools need to improve the quality of teaching.
When she received the prize, Duflo said she hoped it would inspire more women in economics. She also wanted to use the award to speak out against poverty and for better education for children.
Other Awards
Duflo has received many other awards for her work.
- In 2002, she won the Elaine Bennett Research Prize. This award honors a top female economist under 40.
- In 2005, she was named the Best Young French Economist.
- In 2009, she received a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Fellows Program.
- In 2010, she won the John Bates Clark Medal. This award is for economists under 40 who have made important contributions to economic ideas.
- Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011.
- She received the Infosys Prize in 2014 for changing how development economics is studied.
- In 2015, she won the Princess of Asturias Awards in Social Sciences.
- In 2022, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee received the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement.
See also
In Spanish: Esther Duflo para niños
