Esther Duflo (b. 1972)

Who They Were

Esther Duflo (born 1972) is a French-American economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leading figure in development economics. Working from the early 2000s onward, she helped transform how economists study poverty by breaking large questions into smaller, testable pieces and evaluating specific policies directly in the field. With her collaborators she ran field experiments across many low-income countries, testing interventions in areas such as education, health and credit. In 2019 she shared the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, recognised for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. In receiving the award she became the second woman to be honoured with the economics prize, and one of its youngest recipients.

Key Contributions

Duflo is closely associated with the use of randomised controlled trials in development economics - a method borrowed from medicine in which a policy is tested by comparing groups that do and do not receive it. Rather than debating poverty in the abstract, she and her collaborators evaluated concrete questions: what raises school attendance, how to improve child health, or how households use small loans. This experimental approach allowed economists to identify which specific interventions actually work and to build policy from evidence. Her 2019 Nobel, shared with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer, recognised exactly this contribution to alleviating global poverty. The methods she helped popularise are now standard in development economics and widely used by governments and aid organisations designing anti-poverty programmes.

On EconRecall

French-American economist and 2019 Nobel laureate, recognised for an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Play the games that feature Esther Duflo:

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