Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee Join the Department of Economics
The Department of Economics is thrilled to welcome Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee as Lemann Foundation Professors, beginning in the summer of 2026.
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As pioneers in development economics and founders of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), their groundbreaking work, recognized by the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, has reshaped how economists address poverty, inequality, and policy evaluation worldwide.
Esther Duflo is currently the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She also holds the Poverty and Public Policy chair at the Collège de France and serves as president of the Paris School of Economics.
Abhijit Banerjee is currently Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The Department’s foundation, the Excellence Foundation Zurich, has been in close contact with the Lemann Foundation throughout this process and played a pivotal role in securing the funding needed to establish the new professorships. The main purpose of the foundation lies in entering partnerships that further strengthen the Department as an institution of excellence in research and education.
Florian Scheuer, Chairman of the Department of Economics, states: "The appointment of Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee marks a true quantum leap for our department. Beyond their groundbreaking research, they are equally renowned for their extraordinary commitment to student and faculty mentoring and institution building, which I was able to experience firsthand as their student at MIT."
Read the UZH press release