The 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their work to alleviate global poverty.
The prize was first established by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 in the memory of Alfred Nobel who founded the Nobel Prize.
The economic sciences prize is the last Nobel Prize to be awarded in 2019 after five other prizes were awarded last week, ending with the Nobel Peace Prize being given to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his efforts to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring country Eritrea.
Nobel laureates in 2019 win 9.0 million Swedish kronor (€829,000) per prize.
Only one woman has been awarded the prize in economic sciences: Elinor Ostrom won in 2009 for showing how natural resources can be managed jointly without regulation in a way that is “both economically and ecologically sustainable”, according to the Nobel Prize website.
Last year’s prize in economic sciences was awarded jointly to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis”.