Nobel in Economics Is Awarded for Work Toward Alleviating Poverty
Source: New York Times
By Kevin Granville
Oct. 14, 2019
Updated 6:18 a.m. ET
Three professors who have done experimental work toward alleviating poverty have been awarded the Nobel in economic sciences: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both of M.I.T., and Michael Kremer of Harvard University.
Professor Duflo is the second woman and, at 46, the youngest person to win the economics prize.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/nobel-prize-economics.html
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BREAKING NEWS:
The 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."
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2:48 AM - 14 Oct 2019
Original article -
Oct. 14, 2019, 5:56 a.m. ET
Three professors who have done experimental work toward alleviating poverty have been awarded the Nobel in economic sciences: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both of M.I.T., and Michael Kremer of Harvard.
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in the field. Smart design and application, but disappointing that this hasn’t been the norm all along. Behavioral science/economics ought to underlie policy and financial decisions. Maybe someone can point out if I’m missing something, I didn’t delve beyond this.
FYI, Gates’ initiative in the US: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gates-foundation-commits-158-million-to-fight-poverty-in-the-u.s
and they were wondering why people never approached it from that aspect. I.e., there are cultural factors that mask what the needs really are and they were attempting to control for those factors in order to come up with how to collect, analyze, and report data for this subject so one would know what is working (or could work) and what won't. Far too many complain about "throwing money at a problem" without really looking at the underlying causes and trying to address them (which is probably also a fool's errand since there are so many factors involving prejudice and governmental malfeasance that contribute).
Believe it or not (and I haven't researched it enough yet), Barack Obama's mother was involved in things like "microcredit" that had been and continues to offer some short-term benefit to many of these impoverished communities. And while not a panacea as hoped, it fulfills a role of a service not normally available for those folks. Researchers such as these 3 would devise ways to look at the data from something like this to determine what the outcomes were.
