Nobel laureate discusses ways to alleviate global poverty
October 31, 2024—Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee often hears people judge those in poverty. He attributes those judgments to misconceptions, and pushed back on those false notions in a recent conversation at the Harvard Chan Studio about solutions that can reduce global poverty.
For example, Banerjee, director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, emphasized that impoverished people will still spend money on needs other than food or shelter—including finding ways to create joy in their lives, like a phone to talk to family or a television to watch soccer with friends. “The idea that even very poor people don’t spend their entire income on food is entirely part of the distinction between surviving and living,” said Banerjee.
Banerjee’s comments came in an interview moderated by Rita Hamad, associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research (SPHERE) Center. Banerjee, along with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer, were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for “their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” Banerjee shared his thoughts on several poverty alleviation programs, including a study he led in Kenya on the most efficient way to administer universal basic income.
When asked whether global wealth should be redistributed to alleviate extreme poverty around the world, he replied, “I think the answer is obviously yes…there’s no credible argument on the other side.” To reduce inequality, Banerjee called for an end to tax havens that allow the uber-wealthy to avoid tax responsibilities.
Banerjee also told the audience that research must be only part of the process of combating poverty. He argued that in order to translate findings into policy, there must be “several layers of persuasion that sit on top of the evidence. The evidence is essential…but once you have the evidence, you still need the bandwidth to take it to the next layer.” Those efforts, he argued, should be directed at persuading media members and policymakers that a particular study is worth their attention.
In closing, Banerjee noted that even though the pandemic set back global poverty alleviation efforts, there were massive drops in poverty in the two decades prior, as well as infant mortality, maternal mortality, and malaria deaths—progress that Banerjee hopes can return sooner rather than later. “It’s easy to despair, but if you look at the period from 2000 to 2019, it’s a period that’s actually remarkably positive for the world’s poorest,” he said.
Photo: Kent Dayton
