American trio win Nobel Economics Prize for work on poverty

Indian-born Abhijit Banerjee of the US, his French-American wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer of the US were honoured “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” the jury said.

“This year’s laureates have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty,” the jury said.

The three found efficient ways of combating poverty by breaking down difficult issues into smaller, more manageable questions, which can then be answered through field experiments, the jury said.

“They have shown that these smaller, more precise, questions are often best answered via carefully designed experiments among the people who are most affected,” it said.