Rich yields from poverty studies

Field studies do not strictly form part of theoretical economics. While they still debate whether economics is an exact science, development economics, a relatively recent branch of economics, has certainly yielded helpful gains for policy planners in framing poverty alleviation schemes. The award of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to commemorate Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of killer dynamite, to an Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee, his French-American wife, Esther Dufflo, and Michael Kremer for “their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty” underlines the renewed concern over global poverty and the ways to alleviate it. In fact, the Swedish Academy said that the prize to the trio is recognition that their work has had salutary impact in framing poverty-alleviation policies in various countries. Banerjee and Dufflo, the first husband and wife couple to win the Economics Award, spent considerable time studying various poverty-alleviation programmes in India and a few other countries in Africa. Through randomized controlled trials, for instance, they gathered why there are poor outcomes in schools in this country. It was neither due to the lack of infrastructure or funds, but the absence of teaching assistants for those students requiring special attention. Remedial tutoring could result in better outcomes, they concluded after field trials in Mumbai and Vadodra. Again, during the course of their field studies they realized that women in Rajasthan were still not enthusiastic about immunization of children despite the government programme being totally free. They devised that a bag of two kilograms of pulses be given free to every mother who brought her child for inoculation. The vaccination programme soon became a success. Their work through their poverty action lab at MIT conducting randomized controlled field trials, such as the ones they did in Mumbai and Rajasthan, has benefited policy planners in fine-tuning various poverty alleviation schemes. Yet, there are skeptics who question whether what they do falls in the domain of economics as it is widely understood. Given that the western world’s conscience is now pricked by the endemic poverty in the developing countries, the Economics Nobel underscores their recent priorities. It is notable that the other Indian who got the Nobel for Economics, namely, Amartya Sen, too got it for welfare economics and a study of poverty. It might be relevant here to mention here that Kailash Satyarthi too was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Malala Yousafzai, for saving destitute children and fighting for their right to education. While at it, we might recall that Yousafzai received the honour for defying the Taliban ban on girls attending school. In short, a lot that goes behind the decision of the grey eminences that sit on the Swedish Academy and decide the winners of the global headlinemaking awards we ordinary folks remain completely in dark of aside for the citation that accompanies the grant of each award. We are extremely happy that another Indian has got the honour but we will perennially regret the decision of the wise men to deny it to Mahatma Gandhi despite his being nominated thrice. And why should they have given President Barrack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize barely few months into office remains unexplained to this day. But, as they say, why strike a sour note on a happy occasion. We don’t. We revel in the general feeling of happiness among Indians that one of them, albeit with an American passport, is a Nobel Laureate yet again.