Never thought my son would win Nobel as there are other notable works: Abhijit Banerjee's mother
Kolkata: It's not every day you meet the mother of a Nobel Laureate who is grounded and acknowledges that there are other notable works too besides that of his son.
Yes, you are guessing right! Indian-American Economist Abhijit Banerjee's mother Nirmala Banerjee said she never thought her son would receive this honour as there are several other people doing notable works.
Abhijit Banerjee, along with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kreme, jointly won the Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”
"People used to say a lot but I don't get influenced by such remarks. I think there are many people who are doing great so only he will get the Noble Prize is something I never thought," said a very grounded mother on her son's big achievement.
Admitting that she is yet to speak to her son, Nirmala Banerjee, on being asked what would she tell the winner first, said: "Am going to tell him why didn't you give me a note of this before? "
Banerjee became the second Indian after Amartya Sen to win the Nobel prize in Economics.
On being asked about his son's relationship with Sen, Nirmala Banerjee said: "Amartya Sen and Abhijit share very good friendship. They often visit each other."
Banerjee was born in Kolkata and attended South Point School and Presidency College in the city.
Later, he completed his M.A. in economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi in 1983.
He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1988.
Speaking about Banerjee's performance as a student, his mother candidly said: "He was not a topper student. He was a good student. He was interested in other things too like he loves songs and tennis."
Abhijit Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Nirmala Banerjee said her son remained an Indian at heart even as he had accepted Ameican citizenship in 2017.
Banerjee is a co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (along with economists Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan), a research affiliate of Innovations for Poverty Action, and a member of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty.
Banerjee was a president of the Bureau for the Research in the Economic Analysis of Development, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, an international research fellow of the Kiel Institute, fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow at the Econometric Society.
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