Abhijit Banerjee

Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee (Bengali pronunciation: [obʱid͡ʒit̪ binae̯ɔk bɔnd̪opad̪ʱːae̯]; born 21 February 1961) is an Indian American economist who is currently the Lemann Foundation Professor in Economics at the University of Zurich (UZH). He is co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), an MIT based global research center promoting the use of scientific evidence to inform poverty alleviation strategies. In 2019, Banerjee shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." He and Esther Duflo are married, and became the sixth married couple to jointly win a Nobel or Nobel Memorial Prize on economic sciences.

Banerjee's academic appointments include being 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. In 1994, he received a Sloan Research Fellowship, awarded annually to early career researchers with the "potential to revolutionize their fields." According to Research Papers in Economics, Banerjee is among the most productive development economists in the world, ranking in the top 75 researchers by total research output.