On Oct. 14, Abhijit Banerjee of MIT, Esther Duflo of MIT, and Michael Kremer of Harvard were awarded the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their work in researching new ways to study and help the poor. 
All three professors have been conducting research for more than 20 years in efforts to find a way to alleviate poverty. They search for evidence alluding to which strategies can be used to resolve problems such as education deficiencies and child health in a practical and efficient way.
“Despite recent dramatic improvements, one of humanity’s most urgent issues is the reduction of global poverty, in all its forms. More than 700 million people still subsist on extremely low incomes,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in their press release. “This year’s Laureates have introduced a new approach to obtaining reliable answers about the best ways to fight global poverty.”
The way Banarjee, Duflo, and Kremer have devised a new strategy is by dividing the larger issue of poverty into several smaller, simpler questions. They have shown through experiments and research that this method better answers the more precise questions.
“As a direct result of one of their studies, more than five million Indian children have benefitted from effective programs of remedial tutoring in schools,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. “Another example is the heavy subsidies for preventive healthcare that have been introduced in many countries.”
This year’s Laureates are also different than the former prize winners; they have brought about real change within the world.
“Nobels are often awarded for theoretical achievements, but this year’s laureates distinguished themselves with real-world trials,” Jeanna Smialek said in her article for the New York Times. “Other economists said the choice showed that the field as a whole was approaching problems differently, a change that Dr. Banerjee, Dr. Duflo, and Dr. Kremer had helped to bring about.”