The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has recently been awarded to husband and wife Massachusetts Institute of Technology professorial team, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” The third recipient is Michael Kremer, professor of Developing Societies in the Department of Economics at Harvard, who previously taught in Kenya.
Officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the award was created in 1968 by Riksbanken, the Swedish central bank.
The award comes with a 9 million-kronor ($918,000) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma.
Nobel prizes were also given in medicine, physics and chemistry plus two literature awards, and the once acclaimed “Peace” Prize.
The Nobel Peace Prize (complete recipient list) lost much of its luster after it was awarded to Palestinian Liberation Organization leader and terrorist Yasser Arafat, known for inciting murderous rampages including suicide bombers and blowing up school buses filled with Israeli children.
It’s nothing if not political. Since its inception in 1901, there have been 125 recipients. Four have been U.S. Presidents and one a failed Dem candidate. Only one of the four, Theodore Roosevelt, has been a Republican — in 1906. Democrats Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002), and Barack Obama (2009) all merited the award, along with Al Gore (2007).
Obama, who submissively bowed to emperors, tyrants, and Muslim monarchs received the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.”