Esther Duflo Keynote Speaker

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT. Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behaviour, education, access to finance, health and policy evaluation. Esther co-wrote (along with fellow Professor Abhijit Banerjee) “Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty” (Penguin, 2012). The book won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Book of the Year Award.

Esther is also a founder and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research network specialising in randomised evaluations of social programmes, which won the BBVA Foundation “Frontier of Knowledge” award in the development cooperation category. She is also an NBER Research Associate, serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is Director of the Centre of Economic Policy Research’s development economics programme.

Esther has received numerous academic honours and prizes including the David N. Kershaw Award (2011), the CNRS Médaille de L’Innovation (2011), the John Bates Clark Medal (2010), a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the inaugural Calvó-Armengol International Prize (2009), the “Best French Young Economist Prize” (Le Monde/Cercle des économistes, 2005) and the American Economic Association’s Elaine Bennett Prize for Research (2003).