Nobel Prize Winner Esther Duflo Speaks on Good Economics for Hard Times

Co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Professor Esther Duflo, will deliver the 2022 PPE Distinguished Public Lecture at Virginia Tech.

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). She is a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, and is Director of the development economics program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Professor Duflo’s research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including education, access to finance, health, and policy evaluation – taking economics out of the lab to discover the causes of poverty and means to eradicate it. Her book (co-authored with Abhijit Banerjee), Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, was Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year.

Professor Duflo is the Editor of the American Economic Review and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She was honored as MacArthur Fellow in 2009, received the John Bates Clark Medal as the best economist under 40 in 2010, and won jointly the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on global poverty alleviation in 2019.

Professor Duflo is the youngest person and second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. She hopes that “showing that it is possible for a woman to succeed and be recognized for success is going to inspire many, many other women to continue working and many other men to give them the respect that they deserve like every single human being.”

At Virginia Tech, Professor Duflo will speak about her new (co-authored) book, Good Economics for Hard Times, that addresses some of the thorniest social and political problems of our time. The virtual lecture will take place on February 16, 2022, from 5-6:30pm (Eastern Time).

All faculty, students, and members of the public are welcome to attend this lecture. Advance registration is required for this virtual event under this link. Here is a link to the VT News feature about the lecture.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact the Virginia Tech production team (production@nullvt.edu) at least ten business days before the event.

More than 300 faculty members and students attended the lecture, with the attendees joining from across the U.S., Canada, U.K., Europe, Israel, and Hong Kong.