Esther Duflo

Esther Duflo was born on 25 October 1972 in Paris, France, to pediatrician Violaine Duflo and mathematician Michel Duflo. She earned her first degrees in history and economics from École Normale Supérieure in Paris, followed by a Master's at the Paris School of Economics, and a PhD in economics from MIT in 1999. Her dissertation used a natural experiment from Indonesia's school expansion to provide causal evidence that more schooling boosts future earnings. After her PhD, Duflo joined MIT faculty and co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in 2003. This network grew to support experiments worldwide, influencing programs reaching over 450 million people by 2019. Duflo married Banerjee, her research partner, and together they authored influential books like 'Poor Economics' and 'Good Economics for Hard Times'. Duflo holds the Abdul Latif Jameel Professorship at MIT, the Chaire on Poverty and Public Policy at Collège de France, and presidency of the Paris School of Economics. At age 46, she became the youngest Nobel laureate in economics and the second woman for pioneering RCTs that break poverty into testable components for effective solutions.