First Amartya Sen, Then Abhijit Banerjee: Why Presidency University Is ‘Proud’

The Presidency University said on Monday that it is a proud moment for the institute that Abhijit Banerjee, one of its alumni and mentor group members is a joint winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics. Presidency University feels happy that two of its alumni members, both stalwarts in Economics - Amartya Sen and now Banerjee have been chosen for the Nobel in Economics, University registrar Debajyoti Konar said.

"The entire Presidency family feels immensely proud for Banerjee who has jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize along with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer," he told PTI.

"He had been a member of our mentor group and has always offered us valuable suggestions for the economics department," Konar said.

Banerjee, he said, had visited Presidency in 2018. "Whenever he visits Kolkata he makes it a point to visit his alma mater with which he is still associated".

He will be felicitated in a befitting manner when the institute reopens after Durga Puja vacation, Konar added.

Banerjee, an Indian-American jointly won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize along with two others - his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer on Monday "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."

"The research conducted by this year's laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty. In just two decades, their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics, which is now a flourishing field of research," said the Nobel committee in a statement.

Banerjee, 58, was educated at the University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D in 1988.

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He is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to his profile on the MIT website.